No, no, come home, Come home, Come home, come home.
On this episode of the Heat Check, guess who's back back again.
Kyrie's back, still not vaccinated. He's out here trying to save the net season. How did he do? What does it mean for the.
Nets and how will it affect Brooklyn's chances going forward? Let's talk about it from the betting side, and let's have on a special guest, Matt Mhewan of the Sports Betting Dime.
So do me a favorite brock and drop that.
Motherfa I love the fielding crimson me cern me is exactly a upon and bucking.
Kyrie is back after the world and all of the Nets said that there was no possibility that they would have Kyrie back as a.
Part time player. Turns out that was a lie. That was a lie.
So he made his twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two debut on January fifth, twenty twenty two. And the man who has become, I guess an icon of the unvaccinated had a pretty good stat line just coming off the street twenty two points nine to seventeen shooting in Brooklyn's.
Win over Indiana one twenty nine one twenty one.
And of course this was on the road, which is the only place that Kyrie can play, and although he was I think he said he was.
Like very nervous, very rusty.
He missed his first shot, which was apparently scripted by Steve Nash as a gift to Kyrie Irving and later said.
Like, I was so nervous, That's why I missed. Dude's a bucket.
And the only real stat that matters is that in thirty two minutes Kyrie was plus sixteen.
On the floor. And that is what the Nets have been missing this year. They've been missing the death.
Now they have Patty Mills coming off the bench, and now they have another scorer who can get his own shot, where all the burden doesn't have to just be on Kevin Durant and a hamper James Harden and Katie of course was happy he had thirty nine points on sixty three percent shooting. That's what happens when you don't have to shoulder the entire burden offensively for your franchise.
And for once this year, all was well in Nets world.
Currently Brooklyn twenty four and twelve, just one and a half games behind the Bulls for the one seed, so was now the right time to bring Kai back.
I guess it depends on how.
You look at things, right, Like, it's not ideal having a part time player, it's just not. But the Nets are They are better. They are undeniably better with Kyrie on the floor. And even if that's only on the road and I didn't realize it to the full extent, I mean, I've seen it, but the only he's really the only key to unlocking what's best about James Harden Harden eighteen five and six and the Pacers win. But that was really actually great because he wasn't asked to be superhuman at a time when.
He's just Stella trying to get his groove back.
So what does Kyrie Irving returning as the Road Warrior actually even mean? What can we expect going forward? Has there ever been a team more different at home on the road than these Nets?
Probably not.
So to get to the bottom of this, we're interviewing Matt McEwan, national sportsbook expert and editor in chief at.
The Sports Betting Dime.
We had a great conversation with Matt at the start of the NBA season where he explained how COVID affects the way that the Vegas looks at NBA lines, what it means for players like Kyrie Irving and Bradley Beal, Bradley Beal recently getting vaccinated, and whether the league had prepared for the eventuality of another wave or another lockdown.
Spoiler alert, they did not, so without form or a doom. Let's get into it.
All right, Welcome back to the heat check, matt Man. We got a lot of news to break into two parts. First, big news Kyrie Irving's return, what do you think it means to the net so? And then let's after that, let's return to a conversation that we had on the season eve of COVID.
First, do you think that at that point, like throughout.
The course of the season, half the almost half the season is up, did you think that Kyrie would play this year?
Or did you believe.
That Josie was being truthful when he said we're not going to have any part time players.
I personally thought Kyrie was going to play this season. You know, as much as we all loved the idea of you know, just just a Kevin Durant, James Harden led that team with you know, some decent role players there and Aldridge, Patty Mills. I mean, unless they were running the table here, how do you not fight for someone like Kyrie Irving coming back?
Right?
I mean it makes sense, so I figured he would play, you know, I think this is a small step towards him becoming a more full time player. You know, that's not any I don't have any insider info on New York politics, just for the record, but I did expect to see this, and obviously sportsbooks did too, based off of you know, the nets very short championship futures.
Right right, and COVID.
This holdout, I think has made a lot of news because Kyrie his history and it's tie into this larger story, right Like, ever since being in Brooklyn, he's played twenty games the first season. He's played fifty four regular season games last year and nine games in the playoffs before he hurt his ankle. You know, do you think we should feel safe or better, should feel safe that because he missed the early part of the season, that he'll be good to go for the remainder.
Of this season.
Yeah, that's really tough.
I mean, injuries just strike whenever, right, I mean, you always hear of you know, the pitch counts and things like that, you know, trying to keep somebody, you know, less strain on the body. Right, So, I think there's definitely a case to be made here with Kyrie being a part time player, maybe right up until the playoffs. I mean maybe full time sorry, full time part time player funny there, Like, maybe he does continue sitting out home games in the playoffs. Like it's all possible now.
I think there's a strong case to be made that that could keep Kyrie healthy and we could see him in every single road game outside of you know, Toronto and Golden State there.
But I think that's definitely.
Something to you know, you could lean on a little more than you could in previous years with Kyrie.
There's a lot of people who consider this team to be a super team, right, Like two to four all star MVP level players just means it's.
A super team.
But to me, that like, there are real super teams that not only have all stars, but they also have deep benches, they also have role players. There's a chemistry to them outside of just the stars playing on it.
And to me, the only teams that really.
Match the star power between outside of the nets are Warriors and the Lakers, right, I guess you could maybe say the Bucks sort of, and one of those teams is terrible this year, like the Lakers have been awful, and then you have the Suns and the Bucks who
have stars and they have depth and they have chemistry. Like, do you think even with Kyrie there, even if he comes back full time, would you consider the Nets in that same class Because Jeff Green's gone, Blake is dropped off, and the two leading scorers after Harden and Katie are Paddy Mills and LaMarcus Audridge.
Now, you know, I don't get me wrong, I'm not a Patty Mills super fan over here, but I think Patty Mills getting moved to the bench, you know, for road games essentially, I think that gives them like that, that's a big shot of depth to me. I think Patty Mills was doing just fine, you know, in that starting lineup. You know, it'll be interesting to see what Steve Nash does with lineups there. But I do I think this is the super team, you know, I think
without Kyrie Irving they are a super team. And you throw him back into the mix, I it's gonna be really, really difficult to make an argument that that this team gets stopped in the East and you know, further in the NBA Finals as well.
Other than the Bucks, this Eastern Conference is full of parody, I guess is a gentle way of saying it. Do you think that there.
Are any good teams good enough in the East to throw a future bed on that can contend with like a healthy Brooklyn or maybe even push into six or seven games?
Yeah, I mean, you know, the Bulls right now obviously are the team that has to come to mind, right with just just looking at their record round twenty five and ten at the time that that we're talking here.
But I'm looking you know, you can get.
Twenty five to one there not a bad price for you know, the top team in the East right now. However, you know, like we've seen with a lot of DeMar To to Rosen lead teams, they tend to be very good in the regular season, you know, and and all of a sudden, the whistles go into the rest pockets a little more and they're they're you know, play gets a little more physical in the playoffs tomorrow hasn't been able
to keep up, right. I'm a big Raptors fan, so you know, I lived through that far too many years, so I don't personally believe that the Bulls have what it takes to keep up with the nets right now, even at twenty five to one, I don't feel great
about that bet. I think Miami is the one team that comes to mind that I think, you know, even though we haven't, they haven't been outstanding yet, I think they have the pieces in place where if they can just continue, you know, with building that chemistry, kind of learning each person's role on that team. Here, they're about fourteen to one right now, I would love like if they got to twenty to one, I would be very comfortable putting a bet on the heat.
I took them early preseason twenty five to one heats.
There you go, that's a great price there. Yeah, you must be feeling pretty good.
Plus nine hundred as well. Both those feel good. That's the time to place those futures bets. It's hard to do that.
Last time we talked, you talked a lot about how Vegas was going to deal with COVID this year, and I don't know if any of us, UH including Vegas, was prepared for omicron right like it didn't even I don't think exist when you and I spoke, no, considering that the last two years have been COVID plagued, either partially or fully. You know, why do you think this surge caught not only just the NBA, but but Vegas by by surprise?
Why? You know what?
I think everyone was just starting to look forward and into you know, better times, a non COVID world. And you know, even though they had this you know a bit of a playbook on how to deal with this, right, because they had to do it, you know that, I think they kind of threw it out a little too quick obviously, right, and and forgot some of these lessons they learned.
It's it's been absolutely nuts, you know.
I I hope that at the worst, you know, is behind us here, but you know, it's it's going to continue being a struggle here as long as you know, these these new variants keep coming along. And you know how you know how how bad are are.
Each one of these variants?
Right?
I mean, we we know what we've heard of omicron is it's.
Not as deadly, but who knows the next one that comes along what that one's.
Going to be?
And and the other part here is all all these all this talk about boosters right now, right if if you know, if the government decides, if all these states start deciding two isn't enough now you have to have all three shots? You know, does that all of a sudden rule out how many players is that potentially you know, put on this same list as as Kyrie Irving is
now being seen as unvaccinated? Right and and do other states start trying to step up and impose these same types of rules that we've seen at in New York, California up here in Canada. It's it's going to be very interesting to see how Vegas continues dealing with them.
Last time we talked this is this was your quote about Vegas. Vegas prize themselves on having inside information and being one step ahead of the public, but a lot of this stuff they're going at the same speed as the public, and there was such a lot of uncertainty from the sportsbooks.
Do you think what it's like a couple of.
Months into the season now thirty plus games, almost forty many like different variations with guys coming into these ten day hardships and like lines swinging huge amounts last minute scratches. Do you think that Vegas has gotten better at dealing with NBA lines this year.
I personally believe they have from what I have experienced here just watching you know, the last couple of months there. You know, it seems like they've just got people with their finger on the trigger ready to just pull games off the board, right that like the moment there's any sort of doubt over anything, instead of trying to quickly you know, adjust a line, you know, move a total
anything like that, it's just gone off the board. Let's sit down, let's talk about it before we reopen this line and potentially, you know, expose themselves with a bad line to you know, any sort of yeah, potential money exposures.
Right.
We also talked about how Vegas doesn't need to break COVID news, but they just need to read the public. How well do you think they've done at reading the public this year as it concerns the NBA.
So, you know what, there was a great example last night actually in this Nets game where I.
Can't believe they weren't more prepared for this.
You know, the line in this Nets Pacers game, the total opened up at about two eighteen or so to eighteen and a half, depending where you looked, and I mean it seemed like it was, you know, a pretty popular opinion that Kyrie's back, We're gonna get more points.
Everybody just bet the hell.
Out of the over, you know, And they did, and the line went all the way up to two twenty five at one point before it kind of settled back down to.
Two twenty four.
But they just exposed themselves to a pretty big window for people to middle them right.
And I was amazed to see that.
I suspected last night that we would be facing a bit of a sharp versus square game where you'd see, you know, the majority of the public money all on Brooklyn and you'd have these sharps just kind of come in late pick off the plus eight and a half plus nine lines, which admittedly I was, you know, I'm no sharp myself, but I found myself on that side last you know, last night, I picked off them at at eight and a half. Thank you for that layup
with three seconds left to go. Appreciate that one. But they you know what I've been I've been surprised by some of the risks this year that they have, you know, created these liabilities for themselves. Now, you know, don't get me wrong when when they're pulling in the handles they are and the you know, the whole, the whole percentage that they have. I mean, you've got some room to play with. So I don't think any of these sports books are by any means going broke. They're they're doing
just fine. So, you know, little losses here and there. I guess they're willing to just put up with.
Yeah, that's interesting, especially I guess if it drives engagement on a really heavily like marketed game too, right, like people jumping all over a line. Yeah, that was a shaky line, like that felt fishy.
It started at what it opened at seven seven and a half.
I saw six and a half, actually as low as six and a half, which I felt like that was Honestly, I felt that was probably a decent line based off of my own.
This is just my opinion that.
I figured Kyrie would you know, kind of harm the chemistry a little bit?
Might might not? You know, have his legs underneath them right away?
First game back in a while, but I it was, yeah, so you know, every dog has its day, right, that was mine last night?
I yeah, wild.
Do you think omicron has changed your opinion about the value of watching NBA opening lines, like with all the uncertainty about how these things change, like you'll see lines from the night before.
To the to tip off ten.
Point swing sometimes like do you feel like it's more important now than ever to kind of assess what games?
And like I now have the NBA.
Injury report list bookmarked on my laptop every thirty minutes i'm watching. So is there now like more importance than ever to kind of like not only look at the opening lines, but maybe punt all the way until tip off?
I I yeah, absolutely, Now, I'm I am someone who's always been a you know, very big on opening lines. I I do believe that, you know, before the public touches them. You know, books have bad.
Lines sometimes, right, and and there are some some.
Very good betters out there that you know, expose those lines and and informed the public of them, and then you know that's it's no longer a bad line, you know, speaking to to NFL just really quickly here, I know we're we're talking NBA, but I mean it's been the same thing in NFL where I've I've picked off what I thought were terrible lines. Uh, you know, first thing Sunday night when they open, only for Wednesday to roll around, and all of a sudden, this player, this player, and
this player have been ruled out with COVID. Okay, well, you know I'm not sitting on a good line anymore, right So, it's it's been the same with NBA. It's it's you know, everyone, you kind of have to change some of your betting habits right now, right where, you know, not permanently, but at least temporarily during this this time of uncertainty where I would have a really hard time placing it significant wager on an opening line right now.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I think early on in the day yesterday, the Milwaukee Bucks were ten point favorites over the.
Goodness gracious Detroit Pistons.
I want to say, somebody trash and I forget who it was. And I took Milwaukee minus four and a half first half, and I'm thinking to myself, this is great, like I'll take this, and then all of a sudden, Yannis gets called out for a non COVID related injury and our illness, and now not only has the line changed,
it's flipped. Like now I have to just kind of sit there and wait in those situations first and foremost, they then became dogs, and then they they were like three and a half point favorites for the full game, and then they became full dogs in those situations. What's your best advice? I sat there and ate it. I still ended up winning the full that first half spread, but it didn't feel good, didn't feel comfortable, and I kind of like my initial instinct was like to just go and try to hedge.
Yeah.
Now, first of all, I think this trash team that you mentioned was my Toronto rapt That's what it was.
It was the Raptors. Ye. Actually, you guys are playing a lot better right now. You guys are.
Playing a lot thank you.
That's that's very nice of you to say, we're finally healthy. Now, finally got all all of our players on the floor.
That's okay. So it was my wrap.
Now, I mean this is very situationally based, right, but it is.
It is tough, and it's it can.
Be extremely difficult to try to find that hedge on it, right, It's it's so situational. I don't want to give any advice to say this is what you always do. I think a lot of the time you just you have to eat it. And and and this is kind of what I was just saying, where I I haven't been making any significant bets on the NBA, on any early lines in the NBA this year for for this exact reason. You know, I still haven't necessarily learned my lesson with NFL.
I'm still trying to pick off some of those early lines. But if there's a hedge opportunity, you take it. Otherwise, if it's not obvious, you know, I think you do just have to eat it.
Do you think, Matt.
Finally, you know, we've talked about a lot of scenarios and eventualities, and I spoke with Jake Fisher from the Bleacher Report today and he says that the NBA is in contact with immunal virologists every day and they believe that the.
Worst of all of this is over.
I think that's a little optimistic, given what you said about all the new variants that may come and probably will come, and then how that ends up affecting Okay, well, you allow non vaccinated players or even vaccinated players to not be tested for COVID, so they could end up playing with COVID spreading, said COVID and infecting possibly the
fans right there in the stands. Is Vegas prepared for the eventuality, including maybe a surge in places that make fans in attendance impossible kind of like Toronto is right now due to lockdown.
So are they prepared as in like their lines, like, are they ready to kind of alter lines based off of yeah? So you know, we we I think they've they've experienced enough games now with and without fans. You know that that entire NBA Playoffs that was played in the bubble there, right, I mean that was that was really something else. So they've they've at least, you know, got a bit of a playbook. Here should understand at this point, which home crowds are really giving, you know,
that boost to the team. What are they worth? Is it somewhere between one too? You know, I mean zero to you know three points ish?
Right? Where's where's that range?
So I do believe they are ready to deal with that.
They have the data anyways.
But again, you know, as I kind of said last time, and you quote me again here, just read the public, right, and and that's that's really all they have to do. So it's opening a line and having somebody there ready to to you know, respond with either whether that's a line you know, quick line shift or you know, pull the game off the board for a minute and and you know, think about what what has just happened here? Right, So I think they should be prepared.
For that quick add on.
I didn't think about until just now when you were talking about how they adjust for home court advantage or the absence of if you know, I don't know if you do. Like Toronto's famous for their home court advantage, like that is one of the most electric places to watch a game.
I watched the finals there.
The home crowds crazy, the fans outside the stadium crazy, adds like a level of atmosphere that I think really is meaningful. So like without fans for the Raptors, it's it's a meaningful difference, Like what who's the I guess can you give kind of like a somewhat of a ranking between like the zero in terms of home court advantage and like the three.
So you know, sadly, I do believe for the for the most part, this comes down to star teams, right, which that teams that have star players that are putting fans in the stands, right that's those are the teams that you're gonna find near the top here. Then you do have your other teams, you know, like Toronto, like you've said where I mean it's a very passionate fan base, don't have necessarily that that one superstar on the team. Fingers crossed for Scottie Barnes here. I really think he's
gonna be a player. But you know, it's it's it's Toronto, It's Golden State. You know, they were they've always kind of been known down the Oracle days right where where that was a very loud, rowdy stadium. But it's you know, on top of that, it's gonna be it's gonna be the Lakers, it's gonna be the Nets, it's gonna be everyone that has these star players.
The zeros are.
Gonna be the teams that don't and and just struggle to fill that that stadium.
Right.
So that's you know that that's going to be essentially you're your ranking look for the star players. Thanks Toronto being I think the one.
Exception in that circumstance.
Now you in from Sports Betting Dime, thank you for joining us. You can find him on Twitter at s b d underscore Matt, editor in chief of The Sports Betting Dime, thank you so much for joining us.
I'm sure we'll do it again soon. I'm sure there'll be more to come.
Thanks for having Trista. I always appreciate it. Look forward to the next time.
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