Odds are based on where money will be placed. The reason the order of the events matter is because of the psychological aspect of it.
But the hate is made up though. ESPN is just sensationalizing and misreporting, or at best, reporting without context. Everyone keeps thinking 8 out of 10 bets were on the Clippers and that's just not true. That was at one casino, and more of a locals casino too (more Clips fans). That casino has been dying the last 5 years and changing ownership many times. They can't even properly maintain their signage. They just have strong networking ties through Superbook, but Superbook doesn't dictate all sports gambling. The Clippers game was 50/50 when it came to the number of bets by the public. And in the Warriors game, most of the best are on the Rockets ML and spread, bc the payouts are just not worth it. We might see some reverse line movement later. And Warriors series odds are all over the place at the moment. I just don't trust ESPN when it comes to disseminating gambling information properly.
And with the Warriors series line, it's not even a Rockets disrespect thing. At most books, the Warriors were overwhelming favorites to win the title for like 3 months now. ESPN just took the biggest odds for sensationalism, but I'm getting -850 and coming back at +600 on my book, which isn't out of line for anything Warriors related. It would have been pretty much the same vs. the Clippers and was pretty much the same vs the Grizzlies. You can probably find Rockets +500 if you look hard enough. Basically, the Warriors are big time favorites against everyone. It's been that way for months and ESPN is just sensationalizing by selectively reporting gambling odds.
Exposed to what? That their guys will miss more open 3s than Crawford/Reddick/Barnes? That's the initial ingredients that allowed that comeback. Then you compliment that with Smith and Brewer, two of the worst 3 point shooting player in the league to break character for on the same night. That's the only way the Rockets will beat GS. Because Harden will continue to have a bad shooting series because if Reddick can checked him certainly Thompson will too. And all this talk that GS will have to deal with playoff Dwight, well they also don't have to deal with Dmo and Bev.
We are massive underdogs. GS was the best team in the NBA this season, without question. We haven't played well against them.
Stop bringing up regular season record and just look at how the current Warriors are playing in the playoffs. Frankly, I'm not that impressed. Pelicans almost had a shot for the first three games with the Warriors. The freakin' Pelicans! Warriors could not even dominate the Grizzlies when Tony Allen and Mike Conley were both on the court. Pelicans and Memphis are clearly not better than the Rockets, sure Grizzlies have superior perimeter defenders but they can't make threes to save their lives and their bigs are not as athletic and imposing as ours. I seriously think Clippers were more difficult match up for us than the current Warriors are. It sure ain't gonna be easy, but the media is making huge mistake by taking this series for granted, as usual. We'll see what happens.
Expectation is we should Last 4-6 games against the warriors. So you know what, we're suppose to lose. We're not suppose to have a chance. Which is really great because it's not going to hurt so much if we lose. We made it to the WCF - that's more than I could have hoped for. Everything now is just bonus. It's going to be a lot more fun to watch a team that isn't expected to win.
In addition to having hca, the Hawks are also healthy with the exception of Sefelosha. They've also shown the ability to be competitive against their current opponent as well as GSW during the regular season while the Rockets haven't against their current opponent. The Hawks current opponent is also missing a key player in Love. The Hawks are actually favored to win game 1 even though the Cavs are favored to win the series, which is primarily a result of the majority of public having a tendency to side with LBJ teams. In sum, according to odds makers, Hawks have a much better chance of beating the Cavs and their Finals opponent than the Rockets do of beating the Warriors. They fully expect Rockets to get eliminated in the WCF. If the Hawks make it to the Finals due to having a relatively easier path by not having to go through to GSW, which is going to be favored against anyone, their chances of winning the championship increase exponentially by default as a result of being one of the final two teams remaining. Let's not let the actual facts and statistics get in the way of a manufactured narrative of being disrespected.
I know dude, it's just a ridiculous narrative and lazy writing. The public did not disrespect the Rockets in game 7. Locals at one local casino made more Clippers bets, but overall at all casinos, the number of bets on both sides was even. And when it comes to the Warriors, the Rockets are being disrespected as much as any team would be (and has been) disrespected against GS. It's not significantly more or less disrespect. It's just been a high level of respect for the Warriors for months now. Arghh! Stupid ESPN sports betting stories are making people more stupid about sports betting.
