The NBA Playoffs on Tuesday night and we will see the Dallas Mavericks travel to the Toyota Center to take on the Houston Rockets in game 5 of their best-of-seven series. Free Pick to follow. The game has a start time of 8:00 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on TNT. Current Vegas betting odds have Houston listed as 7 point favorites, while the total is set at 222. 

Analysis: The Dallas Mavericks have not really played well down the stretch and they did fall into a 3-0 hole here before bouncing back with a back home win on Sunday. The Mavs didn't fare well in the first two games of this series played here as they lost both by DD. Dallas is 23-30 on the road this year. The Mavs have gone just 14-32-2 ATS in their last 48 vs. the Western Conference and 3-13 ATS in their last 16 road games vs. a team with a home winning % of greater than .600. Dallas has scored 103.8 ppg on 45.2% shooting overall and 35.5% from long range on the road for the year. Defensively they have not been good on the road, allowing 102.8 ppg on 44.5% shooting overall and 35.5% shooting from long range.  

The Houston Rockets are proving to be a very dangerous team as they have now won 16 of their last 21 games, but they did have a slight hiccup in game 4 as the Mavs beat them by a score of 121-109 in that game. Now Houston is back home for this game 5 matchup, where they have gone 32-11 on the year and that includes beating Dallas by 12 and 10 points in the first 2 games of this series. Houston has gone 11-1 ATS in their last 12 games following a SU loss of more than 10 points, and 20-7 ATS in their last 27 home games. The Rockets have scored 104.1 ppg on 44.2% shooting overall and 35.4% from long range at home for the year. Defensively they have been decent at home as they have allowed 98.3 ppg on 45.4% shooting overall and 29.3% shooting from long range.  

Pick: I know this has been a very high scoring series, but I will be going with the Under in this game. The Rockets have actually played very good defense at home this year, where they have allowed just 98.3 ppg and teams have shot just 29.3% from long range vs them on this floor. The Mavs have no defense, but if they want to live for another day then they will have to come up with some and I see them making just enough stops to keep the scoring in this game from getting out of hand. Rocket home games have averaged just 202.4 ppg, while Dallas road game have put up just 206.6 ppg. Plenty of value on the Under here. No more than 215 in this game.  

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