The best Warriors vs Cavaliers NBA same-game parlay & picks for Friday night

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Fresh off a hard-fought road loss to the second-best team in the NBA’s Western Conference, the Cleveland Cavaliers are returning home to tangle with the Western Conference squad that was the best in all of the NBA a season ago.

Only two days after falling 115-114 away to the Memphis Grizzlies, the Cavaliers are welcoming a visit on Friday from Steph Curry and the reigning NBA champion Golden State Warriors (7:30 pm ET). Only this season, the Warriors aren’t looking anything at all like the championship squad of the 2021-22 campaign. Golden State is 22-23 and 10th in the West.

Meanwhile, Cleveland is off to a stellar 28-18 start to the season. However, in the rugged NBA Eastern Conference, where five teams are at least 10 games above .500, that’s only good enough for fifth overall in the conference standings. Even so, the Cavaliers are just 1.5 games behind the second-place Milwaukee Bucks.

Considering the current state of these two teams, the oddsmakers are strongly in the corner of the Cavs. It’s Cleveland that is listed as a 7-point home favorite over Golden State.

There’s one caveat attached to handicapping the outcome of this game and it’s a significant one. Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell is listed as questionable to play due to a groin injury.

Acquired from the Utah Jazz in an offseason trade, the three-time NBA All-Star has been nothing short of brilliant in his debut season with the Cavaliers. Mitchell is showing per game averages of 28.4 points, 3.9 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.4 steals. He’s shooting 48.4% from the field and 39.5% from three-point range.

While his absence would certainly be felt, it’s also worth nothing that Mitchell didn’t suit up against the 31-13 Grizzlies and Cleveland still came within a whisker of halting Memphis’ 11-game win steak. Darius Garland stepped up with 24 points and 14 assists. Caris Levert scored 23 points, while Evan Mobley hit for a double-double with 18 points and 15 rebounds.

They may be defending champs and still suiting up the key pieces of that championship puzzle, including Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. That being said, the Warriors are striking fear into no team.

Curry is still Curry, averaging averaging 29.3 points and 6.3 assists per game. But there’s just nothing imposing about Golden State this season. Oddsmakers are giving the Warriors a much better chance of playing in a play-in game (+170) than of winning another championship (+750) this season.

Golden State squandered a huge opportunity to make a statement win in the club’s last game. The Warriors were nine points ahead in the fourth quarter at Boston in a rematch of last season’s NBA final. But the East-leading Celtics came storming back for a 121-118 overtime victory.

Golden State is coming to Cleveland for the final game of a five-game road trip 2-2 straight up. While their stars remain solid, the lack of depth on this team continues to be the undoing of the Warriors. In NBA advance stats, the Golden State bench ranks tied for 28th in the league with a player impact estimate (PIE) of 46.7. By contrast, the Cavaliers are showing as the NBA’s best bench. Their PIE is 54.5.

Pick: Cleveland Cavaliers -7 (-110).

Here’s a straightforward same-game parlay to put together on Friday’s Golden State vs. Cleveland game. Start by taking Cleveland in the point spread at -7 and odds of -110. On the surface, this might seem like a lot of points to be laying, especially if Mitchell doesn’t play, or isn’t at 100%. Not to worry. The Cavaliers showed against the Grizzlies that they can run with the best in the NBA even without the services of their best player.

Golden State is playing the second game of back-to-backs, coming to Cleveland off a heartbreaking OT loss at Boston. It’s also the fifth game of five-games-in-eight-days road trip that has criss-crossed the country from San Antonio to Chicago to Washington, Boston and now Cleveland. A Warriors team that is lacking in depth figures to be worn down physically and mentally.

That being the case, a wire-to-wire win by the Cavaliers doesn’t seem out of the question. So add to the point spread play a first half winner/full time winner parlay on Cleveland at a betting line of -155.

A $10 wager on this same-game parlay play would return a winning payout of $35.60.

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