Mavericks vs Lakers Prediction, Picks Tonight | Wednesday, Jan. 17

Here's everything you need to know about Mavericks vs. Lakers on Wednesday, Jan. 17 — our expert prediction and betting picks for today.

The Lakers will look to build on the most recent win and get back to .500, while the Mavericks look to sweep the season series with their Western Conference foes at Crypto.com arena.

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

The Mavericks take on the Lakers without their MVP candidate Luka Doncic, who will miss his fourth consecutive game on Wednesday night.

Despite Doncic being out of the line up recently, the Mavericks are 2-1 in that span and are over preforming their injury riddled expectations. They are playing a 5-out system that prioritizes pace and space, which can easily be identified with Tim Hardaway Jr's last game, going 9-of-15 on 3-point attempts and scoring 41 points.

I believe in the old phrase that teams can "live and die by the 3," and I fear a regression to the mean on shooting splits vs a team with length and a raucous road crowd.

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The story of the Lakers struggling since the play-in tournament continues to trudge on. From a betting perspective, I love the buy low opportunity on a home team with the two best players on the court. The main reason for the Lakers' struggles has been inconsistent rotations due to missing key role players.

Now it is actually the Lakers who enter this contest with a health advantages and the ancillary pieces listed as available. Between Rui Hachimura, Jared Vanderbilt, Taurean Prince, and D'Angelo Russell, the Lakers finally have the scoring, shooting, and creation outside of LeBron James and Anthony Davis to win consistently.

When betting the NBA, I classify numbers in ranges and directions based on how frequently they land as outcomes. Getting Lakers -3 is a strong number to obtain because the six most common outcomes in NBA games occur between 3 and 8, and getting the favorite under the 3 means all of those would be winning outcomes on the Lakers side. When lines move in this number range for NBA spreads, the changes are even more noteworthy.

I am seeing the opening line at -3 at all books, many start moving this to -3.5, and I expect this to close closer to -5 or more when James and Davis are finally confirmed as activate. Simply by beating the closing line and getting this number now, you will have a positive expected value wager.

Pick: Lakers -3