The COVID-19 pandemic turned the entire world of sport on its head, but a sport that some of the greatest schedule disruption was American pro basketball. For teams that qualified for the bubble, the end of the regular season and the playoffs in Orlando brought them back to the floor and allowed them to get back to their game, but the short break between the postseason and the start of the 2020-21 regular season meant that there were a lot of players who either did not get a long enough break or did not start getting back in shape soon enough. For those who did not qualify for the bubble, though, those teams went from March until December without playing any games, so you had teams with widely different levels of conditioning and game readiness taking the floor. From a sports betting perspective, this led to a lot of upsets, particularly in the early going.
Let’s take a look at some of the most surprising upsets that have affected the season and the NBA betting odds.
NBA News: Biggest Upsets in 2020-2021
Sunday, December 27
New York 130, Milwaukee 110
This was the first win for the Knicks in the Tom Thibodeau era — and it came by 20 points. Julius Randle put up 29 points, 14 boards and seven assists, while Elfrid Payton had his best game in a New York jersey with 27 points. The Knicks pushed their lead as high as 28 points at one point in this game. New York had lost their first two games of the season, to Indiana and Philadelphia, games in which they competed well in the first half but could not keep up after the intermission.
Against the Bucks, New York went on a 16-2 run at the end of the second quarter to go into the locker room up 61-43. Randle and Payton each put up a dozen points in the third, as the Knicks led by 21 after that frame. Then New York went on a 7-0 run to start the fourth. The Bucks had just routed Golden State by 39, and Giannis Antetokounmpo put up 27 points and 13 boards in the loss, but the Bucks were ice cold from downtown. They made 20 of 37 from behind the arc against the Warriors but went just 7 of 38 (18 percent) from three-point land against New York. Meanwhile, the Knicks shot 54 percent overall, including 59 percent from downtown. The Knicks’ point guards went 7 of 7 from behind the arc. New York remains in the postseason mix in the East, but this early win showed that they were ready to compete from the get-go.
Sunday, December 27
Dallas 124, L.A. Clippers 73
The Mavericks took until almost the All-Star break to start playing up to their potential, as Kristaps Porzingis and Luka Doncic have had to use the first half of the regular season to play themselves into game shape. Porzingis has the excuse of injury rehab, while Doncic simply took too much time off during the short off-season. The Mavs opened with losses against the SUns and the Lakers before dealing an historic rout of the Clippers.
In that game, Dallas was up by 50 points — at halftime — with the score 77-27. That was the largest halftime lead for any team during the shot-clock era, which dates back to 1954-55. Doncic had 24 points, and Josh Richardson put up 21. Tim Hardaway Jr added 18 points. The Clippers had started their season with wins over the Lakers and the Nuggets, but they were not ready for the Mavericks in the first half. The Clippers had defeated the Mavericks, 4-2, in the first round of the playoffs down in Orlando, but coming out of Christmas, they were a little bit on the listless side, and Doncic matched their entire team in first-quarter points (13). Kawhi Leonard did miss the game, but the rest of the Clippers’ starters played. Since then, the Clippers have remained one of the elite West teams despite struggling a bit before the break, while the Mavericks have been playing hot basketball to end the first half.
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