In the NBA and the NHL, the champs are doing what’s expected of them.
In the NFL, good luck figuring out the plan in Denver.
The Champs Are (Still) Here
What Happened: Will this be the year of the repeat champs?
On the NBA side, the Nuggets have jumped out to a 2-0 lead on the Lakers, although it did require a Jamal Murray buzzer beater to dispatch LeBron’s squad last night. As for the NHL, the Golden Knights started their quest to repeat with a 4-3 win over the Stars to take an early edge in that series.
Why It Matters: Denver entered the playoffs with the second-best set of odds to end up as NBA champs (+300), trailing only Boston at +145. Jokic and Co. are now at +220, so the value there is dropping with each win.
The Golden Knights carried relatively impressive odds to repeat as Stanley Cup champs (+1200, fourth in the West) despite qualifying for the eighth and last spot in the Western Conference bracket.
The Dallas Stars, who finished the regular season with a better record than Vegas and had +750 title odds, now find themselves as an underdog to advance out of the opening round, with their title odds lengthened to +1100 after just one game.
How We’re Feeling Today
Stunned by the massiveness of Sean Payton’s ego.
Fresh off Russell Wilson stink-a-palooza, Payton goes ahead and trades for…Zach Wilson. Same last name, different flavor of awful, same results.
Surely, Denver isn’t heading into next season with Z. Wilson and Jarrett Stidham as its options under center. So what are the odds Payton and GM George Paton don’t get desperate on draft night Thursday looking for an alternative?
Look away Broncos fans, because your team is about to get leveraged even further into QB hell when it trades up for Bo Nix and Payton convinces himself that’s just Drew Brees reincarnate.
The Look Ahead
Kevin Durant POINTS + REBOUNDS – KD’s season averages of 27.1 PPG and 6.6 RPG put him on course to top his 32.5 PR line for tonight. Durant having scored 33+ points in 54 of his 167 playoff games also gives us faith. But perhaps more than anything, after seeing Anthony Edwards drop 33 points and a whole lot of talk from his chest, we expect Durant to come out guns blazing tonight.
Mika Zibanejad SOG – Zibanejad already showed what he could do in Game 1 of the Rangers’ series against the Capitals, putting four shots on net and notching an assist in a 4-1 win. That marked his eighth time in nine games tallying at least three SOG. His line tonight is 2.5, and we expect no slowdown from New York’s alternate captain.
