Warriors Steph Curry(USA TODAY Sports)`

The Houston Rockets made a major adjustment Monday, helping them tie the series with a 112-108 home victory. Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr will need to make adjustments of his own as the series heads back to Oakland tonight. Here’s a sports betting recap of Game 4 and a lookahead to Game 5.

James Harden and the Houston Rockets flipped the script against the Golden State Warriors in games 3 and 4, winning both games in front of their home crowd.

Kevin Durant and Steph Curry both managed to score 30 points in the loss, but the Warriors looked like a shadow of themselves against a much more physical Houston team. It was the first time for the Warriors to lose a playoff game where Durant and Curry both scored 30 points.

After the 112-108 Game 4 loss head coach Steve Kerr described the Rockets as a bunch of “linebackers” and his Warriors team as “volleyball players.” It’ll be interesting to see how Kerr adjusts to the Rockets’ physicality in Game 5. If the adjustments aren’t enough, it could be the last time the Warriors play in Oakland at Oracle Arena.

Oddsmakers don’t see that being the case, though. Golden State is 6-point home favorites, -275 on the moneyline at BetStars. The 219.5 game total remains what it was when the two teams played in Houston.

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Stat of the Day: D’antoni’s Adjustment, Tucker’s Rise

Head Coach Mike D’antoni’s biggest adjustment all series came in Game 4, putting P.J Tucker at center for much of the game.

Tucker played center only 8% of the time in the first round series against Utah and 14% in Games 1-3 versus Golden State. In Game 4? Tucker was at center 48% of the game, leading to 10 rebounds and 17 points for the big man.

Monkey Knife Fight Prop Shop: Durant (Points), Curry (Threes), Green (Rebounds) via Rapid Fire (2 out of 3)

I’m using Rapid Fire (⅔) for the 1.61x payout. In it, I’m picking Kevin Durant +3.5 points vs James Harden; Curry +0.5 three-pointers made vs Eric Gordon; and Draymond Green +0.5 rebounds vs Clint Capela.

Durant +3.5 points over Harden has hit three out of four games this series.

Curry’s props haven’t been so lucky, as Curry is having arguably his worst shooting performance in his playoff career. Still, Curry is the best shooter of all time. He’ll continue to take shots, and at some point (hopefully tonight) they’ll begin to fall.

Finally, I want to take advantage of D’antoni’s lineup adjustment. With Tucker at center, Capela saw his minutes on the floor fall to 21 — 10 minutes less than what he averaged through the first three games of the series. Capela still managed to grab 10 rebounds in the short period of time, which could be concerning if D’antoni goes back to the traditional lineup. The good news is, we just have to win two out of three of these to cash and I expect Green to be a vacuum on the defensive glass tonight.

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Temperature Meter: Rockets Hot in Houston

Monday’s series-tying win made it 12 straight home wins for the Houston Rockets (5-0 this postseason). The Rockets are 27-17 ATS at home this season, but a much worse 19-25 on the road. Houston is 2-2 ATS on the road so far in the playoffs.

The Breakfast Pick

The Golden State Warriors were outplayed nearly the entire game Monday. With nine minutes left the Warriors trailed by 15 points and were +1200 underdogs to win on the live line. Inevitably, the Warriors made it a two point game with 15 seconds left and gave their two best players chances to tie the game in the final seconds.

What are the odds that Durant misses a wide open three and Curry misses the follow-up?

As mentioned earlier, Curry is playing poorly. Very poorly. All together he’s missed 34 three-point attempts in the series, the most missed threes in a four game span in Curry’s entire playoff career. Despite that, the Warriors are tied and have home court advantage as it now comes down to a best-of-three series between the teams.

The point being, the Warriors aren’t sweating and neither should you if you’re a Golden State backer. And if you aren’t a Golden State backer, you probably should be sooner than later.

If the Warriors are going to be -275 favorites in two of the three remaining games, then I love taking the Warriors -251 to win the series at PointsBet. I’m even going as far as buying them to win the Western Conference -182 at DraftKings Sportsbook and to win the NBA Finals -125 at FanDuel Sportsbook — likely the lowest price they’ll be for the remainder of the playoffs if they win as 6-point favorites tonight

Once again, I prefer to bet the Warriors in the first quarter in this particular game. Breakfast Pick: Warriors -1.5 First Quarter FanDuel Sportsbook; Additionally, take a look at Warriors futures prices.

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