2024 NBA bets, lines and stats for Monday - ESPN

There is a big, 10-game slate in the NBA tonight, including a battle of MVP contenders in Nikola Jokic's Nuggets vs Giannis Antetokounmpo's Bucks, and a battle for the top seed in the Western Conference with the Timberwolves facing off with the Clippers. As always, let's dig in for some angles of interest.

Toronto Raptors (-6.5) over San Antonio Spurs (even).

The Raptors haven't been playing the best ball of late, particularly as they've dealt with injury absences from RJ Barrett and/or Immanuel Quickley, but the Spurs seem to have hit a wall. The Spurs have lost seven straight games overall, but five of those losses, including the last four in a row, have all been by at least 12 points. During that 4-game span, they are losing by an averaged of 16.0 PPG. The Spurs are a very young team, led by rookie Victor Wembanyama, who has already played more NBA games this season than he has ever played games in a season before. His scoring and rebounding have both dipped of late, including him grabbing an eye-poppingly-low five total boards in his last two games, and it just seems they are in need of the All Star Break to recover. According to the ESPN Analytics Game Predictor, the Raptors should be favored in this game to win by 8.1 points.

Brandon Miller over 22.5 points (-105).

Miller is coming off two straight «down» games in which he has averaged 17.0 PPG, which came on the heels of a six-game streak of scoring 20-or-more in every game when he averaged 27.7 PPG on 49.2%. I think he's ready to bounce-back on Monday. His two teen-scoring games came against a Bucks team playing inspired ball and a Grizzlies defense that has quietly allowed the sixth-fewest points to opposing power forwards. Miller faces a Pacers defense on