Mavs look to put squeeze on Lakers Friday night

The Dallas Mavericks have a history of fielding very good teams that come up short in the playoffs. But after winning the first two games of their Western Conference semifinal series in Los Angeles, the Mavs head home for Game 3 on Friday (9:30 pm Eastern, ESPN) just a couple of victories away from eliminating the two-time defending champion Lakers and moving on to the conference finals.

Also Friday the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks, who split the first two games of their Eastern Conference semifinal series at the United Center, play their Game 3 in Atlanta (7 Eastern, ESPN).

Then Saturday the Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder, after splitting the first two games of their Western Conference semifinal series in Oklahoma, play their Game 3 in Tennessee (5 Eastern, ESPN). And the defending Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics, down 0-2 in their series with Miami, host the Heat for Game 3 (8 Eastern, ABC).

Dallas won Game 1 of its series with the Lakers on Monday night 96-94, then took Game 2 Wednesday 93-81. The Mavs shot just 42% from the field on Wednesday, but held LA to 41% shooting and just 32 second-half points. The Lakers also made just two of 20 shots from beyond the arc, and went a head-scratching 11-for-20 from the free-throw line.

So Dallas won outright Wednesday night as 7-point underdogs on the oddsmaker.ag NBA playoff betting line. And Game 2 played UNDER its total of 188.

The Mavs are now 6-2 straight-up and 7-0-1 vs. the pointspreads in these playoffs. Meanwhile, the Lakers are 4-4 SU and 3-5 ATS in these playoffs.

oddsmaker.ag sent Los Angeles off as a -360 favorite to win this series, with Dallas getting +280 as the underdog. Those odds will be adjusted and re-posted within the next 24 hours or so.

The Bulls avoided falling down 0-2 like the Lakers, beating Atlanta on Wednesday night 86-73 to even that series at a game apiece. Chicago only shot 39% from the floor Wednesday, with MVP Derrick Rose going 10-for-27, but the Hawks were even colder, shooting 34% from the field. And after going 7-for-13 from 3-point land in its Game 1 victory, Atlanta went 3-for-13 from long range Wednesday night.

Rose, who turned an ankle at the end of Game 1 and was iffy for Wednesday night, is now 22-for-54 from the field in this series, with 20 assists but 11 turnovers.

So the Bulls got the cover Wednesday as 9-point favorites at oddsmaker.ag. And that game played way UNDER its total of 181.

The totals are now 2-6 in Hawks games in these playoffs, and 3-4 in Bulls games.