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Monday’s Best MLB, NBA & NHL Bets (5/22)

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No matter your sport of choice, there's always sports betting action to be had. We'll have you covered each and every day with our daily best bets. Here are all of our best bets across each major sport in action today.

Today's Best Bets

Here are today's best bets.

MLB Best Bets

St. Louis Cardinals (-190) vs. Cincinnati Reds (+160)| O/U 10 (-106/-114)

The Cincinnati Reds are a covering machine this season, as they entered Sunday 17-6 with a 39.7% ROI against the run line after a loss this season (per Inside Edge), which was the best in the majors. And despite it also entering Sunday with the second-best record (8-3, 33.4% ROI) against the run-line at home in the last 30 days, we expect St. Louis to expose the Reds' young starting pitcher in his first home start.

Since May 5, the Cardinals have the best record in the National League (11-4), and they have made up five games in the division (10 games back to five games back) in that span. The Cardinals look to continue that success against Cincinnati Reds lefty Brandon Williamson, who dazzled in his MLB debut on Tuesday at Coors Field, allowing one earned run in 5 2/3 innings.

Though Williamson never threw more than 15 pitches in an inning and retired 14 consecutive batters at one point, we are not getting too excited, given he pitched to a 6.62 ERA in eight starts at Triple-A. Since St. Louis' winning ways began earlier this month, it ranks best in the majors in HR/FB rate (19.4%) against left-handed pitching, with the second-highest hard-hit rate.

The Cardinals have lost each of southpaw Jordan Montgomery's last seven starts, but we expect them to break out of that slump in a big way against a Reds team that has lost four straight overall.

Pick: Cardinals RL (-128)

-Mike Spector

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NBA Playoffs Best Bets

Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Lakers

The Denver Nuggets are dominating this series. They are leading 3-0 and are one game away from heading to the NBA Finals, and Nikola Jokic is trying to will the Nuggets there. LeBron James and the Lakers will have to do everything in their power to prevent that and take this series back from the Nuggets. 

The Lakers have the betting value tonight. LeBron James will do everything in his power to avoid a sweep. He is one of the greatest players of all time, and great players show up when the series is on the line. This game is in Los Angeles and will give the Lakers a better chance to win. Between home-court advantage and LeBron James, the Lakers will get a win in this series.

Bet: Los Angeles Lakers Moneyline (-158)

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NHL Playoffs Best Bets

Carolina Hurricanes (-104) at Florida Panthers (-115) | O/U 5.5 (-114/-106)

Although the Florida offense has taken a back seat in this series. They have not been better as a unit than Carolina, with just a 38.69 expected goal percentage and a 45.01 Corsi percentage.

Sergei Bobrovsky is having a Conn Smythe-like performance in the playoffs and had another stellar start by saving 37-of-38. He's taken down some of the best offenses in the league during this run and now has 17.3 goals saved above expected and 2.89 wins above replacement.

As mentioned, when you look at the underlining metrics, Carolina's offense has had better opportunities to score, but they haven't figured out how to get through Borbrosky. They have a deep level of talented forwards like Sebastian Aho, Jesper Fast, and Martin Necas, who have been their prominent goal scorers throughout the season but haven't lit the lamp in the series.

There isn't much more they can do besides continue to be aggressive in the offensive zone, fight for rebounds in the crease, and hope they get favorable bounces.

This means the goaltending will have to be near perfect. With Frederik Andersen between the pipes for the entire Game 1, they went with the fresh legs of  Antti Raanta.  Raanta did what he was asked to and kept the Canes in contention for this entire game, but one slip-up and they dropped they lost again.

The question of conditioning will be a significant factor for the rest of this series, as there have already been over 200 minutes of game time in this series. This time, they do not benefit from an extra rest day, so it's a 48-hour turnaround until we get a winner.

We saw a large dip in shots taken, and ultimately the final score went under. That will continue throughout this series.

Pick: Under 5.5 (-106)

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