Friday, March 1 serves up a nine-game NBA slate headlined by a doubleheader on ESPN featuring Celtics vs. Mavericks (7:30 p.m. ET) and Bucks vs. Bulls (10 p.m. ET). On Friday's episode of the "Buckets" podcast, our experts dished out five predictions for tonight's slate, including a pair of picks for those nationally televised matchups.
Let's dive into Friday's best NBA bets from "Buckets."
| Game | Time (ET) | Pick |
|---|---|---|
  | 7:00 p.m. | Pistons +9 |
  | 7:30 p.m. | Warriors -2.5 |
  | 7:30 p.m. | Jayson Tatum Over 8.5 Rebounds |
  | 8:00 p.m. | Timberwolves -6 |
  | 10:00 p.m. | Bucks -4 |
Pistons +9 vs. Cavaliers
7:00 p.m. ET ⋅ NBA League pass
By Maria Marino
Detroit has been sneakily playing better, and covering much more often. And I think the Cavs have reached a point of being overvalued in the market. Cleveland is still a really good team, but this is a lot of points for a Pistons team that has been covering large spreads.
Detroit is 1-3 in the past couple of weeks with a -1 net rating, but the Cavs are 2-3 with a -3.5 net rating, which tells us Detroit has actually been the better team over the past two weeks.
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Warriors -2.5 at Raptors
7:30 p.m. ET ⋅ NBA League Pass
By Maria Marino
The Warriors were at MSG on Thursday and won handedly. They are not only the better team in their matchup tonight, but similar to the Bucks, there is a bit of an urgency factor to handle business against bad teams. Golden State needs to continue to build momentum towards the playoffs.
They are playing better and I feel comfortable in taking them at such a short spread. Toronto with a rest advantage is 6-9-1 against the spread, whereas the Warriors with no rest are 7-4-1 against the spread this year.
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Jayson Tatum Over 8.5 Rebounds vs. Mavericks
7:30 p.m. ET ⋅ ESPN
By Joe Dellera
This is a little bit of a high line, and one he has only hit in 44% of his games this season.
But the reason I like Jayson Tatum's rebounds here is because the Mavericks are one of the worst rebounding teams in the league. If Luka Dončić is out, I would like this even more, because Dončić is arguably Dallas' best rebounder.
The Mavericks allow the second-most rebounds to their opponents, so taking Tatum to get a double-double also is a reasonable play.
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Timberwolves -6 vs. Kings
8:00 p.m. ET ⋅ NBA League Pass
By Joe Dellera
Both teams have significant names on the injury report for this one. Anthony Edwards is questionable for Minnesota and De'Aaron Fox is questionable for Sacramento.
Part of the reason why I like Minnesota is it has been significantly better than Sacramento over the course of the season. The Timberwolves also have the pieces to slow down Domantas Sabonis.
The Kings are 10-14 straight up against top-10 teams in point differential. They have a -5.8 net rating in those games and have failed to cover the spread by an average of 3.8 points, per Cleaning the Glass. Sacramento ranks 20th in defensive rating against top-10 teams, so even if Minnesota is without Edwards, it should still be able to put up points.
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Bucks -4 at Bulls
10:00 p.m. ET ⋅ ESPN
By Maria Marino
Milwaukee is on the second night of a back-to-back.
This seems to be the time the Bucks take advantage of their opponents in important conference games. They obviously are trying to climb and maintain that 2-seed even if they still haven't put it all together yet.
The Bucks are continuing to improve, however, and this is a game in which they have an opportunity to prove they are still top dogs in the East.
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