NBA Odds, Pick for Mavericks vs Knicks

The Knicks had an active deadline day, bringing in Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks from the Detroit Pistons in exchange for bench guards Quentin Grimes and Malachi Flynn, and now they'll cap off their Thursday with a home meeting against the Dallas Mavericks, who were also busy in acquiring P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford.

Can New York secure yet another win, despite potentially being a bit shorthanded for this one?

Let's get to our Mavericks vs. Knicks prediction and pick.

The Mavericks have certainly been a team that's been shorthanded a good deal over the last couple of weeks, but they should be relatively well-staffed for this road game in New York.

Dante Exum and Derek Lively II remain out, but the good news here is that Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic appear to be nearly fully healed from their injuries, and while Maxi Kleber isn't quite 100%, he's still expected to suit up here.

That should help Dallas out considering it's done all of its heavy lifting on offense this year from beyond the arc. The Mavericks rank eighth in 3-point shooting, according to Cleaning the Glass, second in shot frequency from outside, and will put a 16th-ranked Knicks 3-point defense to the test on Thursday.

We saw how the Memphis Grizzlies were able to crawl back into Tuesday's game against the Knicks from 28 points down with hot 3-point shooting, and Dallas has the ability to do the same.

The bad news here for the Mavericks is that their 3-point shooting has fallen off by 3.3 points on the road this season, and while the Mavericks have been steady overall from outside in the last month, the Knicks have been one of the best in the league at stopping the 3 with a stunning 35.7% opponent field goal percentage from outside.

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The Knicks have not only stymied the 3 over the last month, but have ranked fourth in the mid-range and first at the rim to put together the best attack in the NBA since the calendar turned to January.

It's imperative to continue that play here against a Mavericks team which relies on its high-octane offense to win games, and with OG Anunoby set to miss this contest the task will get even taller for this team.

New York has done well on the defensive end in spite of Anunoby's sporadic absences over the last couple of weeks, and survived offensively without Julius Randle, but the potential absence of Jalen Brunson here would certainly throw a giant wrench in things.

Brunson turned his ankle late in Tuesday's win over the Grizzlies, and though he managed to finish the game without issue the team is saying he's questionable for Thursday's game with an ankle sprain. The Mavericks aren't very good at playing defense, but even they should be able to look somewhat competent against a Knicks side missing both Brunson and Randle.

I think it's safe to expect him to play, but for the purposes of betting this one I'd perhaps recommend splitting your bet if you're going to take the Knicks, waiting for confirmation on Brunson before filling in the rest of your stake.

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The Dallas Mavericks are in a rare position for a team visiting Madison Square Garden this season as just the sixth team to come in as the favorite. The Knicks have gone 3-1-1 against the spread as home underdogs this season, and 15-9-1 ATS overall in New York, so even without many of their best players they should be hard to take out.

With Dallas' inability to shoot the ball well on the road, I worry for this team in this spot. It took a 41.5% shooting night from 3 to take out the Knicks at home by just four points earlier in the year, and even though Randle was a big reason why the Knicks were able to win they've been getting incredible contributions in the frontcourt from Isaiah Hartenstein over the last couple of months since Mitchell Robinson was lost long-term with an injury.

The Knicks have been able to win games off the back of their 3-point shooting this year, and the Mavericks have ranked just 24th against outside shots over the last month. They can also get to the rim and score with Hartenstein on the pick-and-roll, which should work very well against one of the weakest frontcourts in the NBA — and one which doesn't rebound well to boot.

I like the Knicks to win ugly in this game. Their 3-point defense has been stellar even despite a tough showing on Tuesday against Memphis in that regard, and if they can just limit Dallas to 36% they should really win this game, even if Brunson doesn't play.

Pick: Knicks +3.5 (-110)

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