I must say this game is quite interesting because this is not a regular game where 2 teams are competing against each other, here we have players from different teams playing for one side and competing against other players - it's a mixture of all the NBA players into 1 interesting night.
Nonetheless - the bookies want to take part in this night and thus they offer betting options on this game. What I really liked investigating so far is the total points that will be scored in this game.
Between 2014 and 2017 the All Star games have easily crossed the 300 line, in 2017 they scored a total amount of 374 points!
In 2018, last year, the oddsmakers set the line as 332.5 and the game ended with 293 points, Team LeBron (East) managed to beat Team Stephen (West) by 3 points, and the tight game also was a factor that kept the scoring board with less than 300 points in total.
What about 2019?
If you check out this video you can see another interesting angle to it:
https://www.nba.com/bucks/video/teams/bucks/2019/02/16/2469012/1550361471972-all-star-defense-021619-2469012Giannis, the captain of Team Giannis (East) has chosen lots of defensive players in his lineup, he is actually asking his teammates to put lots of emphasis on the defensive part of the game.
Now... usually in these All Star games there is quite a common concept that the players don't play any defense, they just play for the show and to make it fun ... so the million dollar question is - will 2018 repeat itself or are we going to experience what we had in 2017 ?
According to several betting forums, I see a tendency to bet on the OVER in this one, because 312 points is not a huge number, it requires less than 80 points in each quarter, and 80 points is definitely not a huge number where the players are relaxing their defense.
However,
In my opinion, we could be heading to a 2nd consecutive year where defense has more emphasis in the game and it won't be just dunks and 3s, in fact I would expect a nice amount of misses from the 3 point line, as well as ball stealing, blocks and other defensive show from both sides.
Don't be surprised if you get a 50-60 point quarter in this one neither!
TLDR --> in my opinion this one is going to be
UNDER 312 points. Expect more defensive actions from both teams. Good Luck and enjoy the game!
