Five of six Mavs home games in these playoffs have stayed Under, continuing a 70% Under-trend from the regular season.

For the past three seasons, the Mavs have been in the top-5th percentile of half-court oriented teams, including this year where the were the slowest pace team in the NBA by Pace.  By installing Dallas as 3-point favorites in this Game 3, the market is telling us the home Mavs are expected to dictate play in this must-win spot, & at home the Mavs have played their most methodical offense.

In the regular season, Mavs games saw 2.4 fewer possessions per game at home vs. on the road.  In the playoffs that differential has more than doubled: we've seen 5.8 fewer possessions per Mavs game in Dallas vs. in Golden State, Phoenix or Utah.

I expect about 3 fewer possessions in this game compared to Games 1 & 2, which would equate to about 3.5 fewer expected points.

But instead the total is it's 2-points higher than it was in Game 2.  This is the same thing we saw in Game 3 of the Mavs/Suns series - which made no sense then either.  This again is over-reaction to one game flying over. 

 

Even including the Mavs cold start in Game 1, these teams combined Effective Field Goal % over the two games in Golden State was 57.3%.  For a team for the regular season, that number would be #1 in the NBA.  Both these teams were better defensive teams than they were offensive teams over the course of the regular season, which tells me it is unlikely these offenses to continue to have the edge as the series goes on and both teams make adjustments.