I need to talk about last night because my therapist doesn't have availability until Thursday and I am not going to make it until then without telling someone what the Indiana Pacers did to me personally. OKC was at home. OKC was -7.5. OKC has Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and approximately 47 other guys who can score from anywhere. The Pacers have Tyrese Haliburton and a collection of tall people who run very fast in random directions. This should have been automatic. AUTOMATIC.
Final score: Indiana 117, Oklahoma City 114. The PACERS. On the ROAD. Against the best team in the West. I'm not even mad at the straight loss. I'm mad at HOW they won. The Thunder led by 9 going into the fourth. They had this game. Shai had 31 points. Everything was fine. And then the Pacers decided to turn into the 2017 Warriors for exactly 11 minutes and shoot 63% from three while the Thunder forgot how basketball works. Tyrese Haliburton hit a stepback three with 14 seconds left like he was auditioning for a movie about clutch genes. The entire city of Indianapolis erupted. The entire city of MY APARTMENT erupted with profanity.
Let's talk about the Nuggets-Bucks game while we're here. Milwaukee was favored. Milwaukee has Giannis. Milwaukee is supposed to be good again. Final score: Denver 102, Milwaukee 100. Jokic had a quiet triple double because that's what he does when he's not even trying. The Bucks had 23 turnovers. TWENTY-THREE. That's not basketball, that's an interpretive dance performance about chaos theory. If you bet the under, congratulations, you're the only winner of the evening and I hope you feel good about yourself.
The Golden Knights beat the Leafs 6-3 which is the most predictable result of the night and somehow the one I didn't bet on. Toronto was ON THE ROAD, SECOND NIGHT OF A BACK-TO-BACK, against Vegas. The line was Knights -165. Free money. OBVIOUS free money. Did I take it? No. I was too busy convincing myself the Thunder would cover 7.5 at home because "the numbers make sense." The numbers lied to me. The numbers are liars.
Meanwhile, in college basketball, Saint Louis beat St. Bonaventure 97-62. A 35-point beatdown. If you had the under in that game, what were you thinking? Did you not know these two teams were playing? Did you assume "St. Bonaventure" was going to lock down on defense because their name sounds churchy? They gave up 97 points. Ninety-seven. To SAINT LOUIS. In a game that was apparently scheduled just to hurt the people who bet totals without looking at the matchup.
And then there's Washington vs Boise State: 38-10. A college football game in January, you ask? Sure, why not. Bowl games are just tax write-offs for sportsbooks at this point. Washington covered everything. They covered the spread. They covered the point total with just their offense. They probably covered someone's mortgage with the gambling losses they inflicted on Boise State backers. Thirty-eight to ten. The Broncos scored exactly one touchdown. ONE. Against a Pac-12 team that barely wanted to be there. This is what happens when you trust Mountain West football in January. You get hurt.
The lesson, as always: there is no lesson. I will bet again tomorrow. You will bet again tomorrow. We will all look at lines and think "this one makes sense" and then watch as reality unfolds in the most mathematically improbable way possible. The Pacers will beat the Thunder. The Bucks will turn the ball over 23 times. College teams with vaguely religious names will either score 97 points or allow 35-point losses and there is no way to predict which.
Someone in my group chat said "maybe take a night off" after the Thunder loss. I blocked them. Not forever. Just until I need to borrow money after this weekend's slate. Which, statistically speaking, will be Sunday evening when I'm chasing with second-half NBA unders like a degenerate chimpanzee pressing buttons for dopamine.
Bad Beat Hall of Fame Nomination: Whoever had Thunder -7.5 and watched them blow a 9-point fourth quarter lead. You are not alone. We are all alone, together, staring at our phones wondering why we do this to ourselves. The answer is because we're sick and the cure is not available over the counter.
See you tonight. There's a 12-game NBA slate and I've convinced myself the Hawks are due for a road win. This is fine. Everything is fine.