Our free NBA picks are out for Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals series between the Dallas Mavericks and Golden State Warriors! Make sure you check our expert NBA picks before the action kicks off.
Look below to find our free NBA picks for the third game of the Western Conference Finals between the Mavericks and Warriors!
Golden State Warriors @ Dallas Mavericks – 9pm ET
The series now moves to Dallas where we get Game 3 between the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks. It is a very important game for the Mavericks, as they don’t want to go down 0-3 in the series. The Warriors have won both games in fairly convincing fashion, winning Game 1, 112-87, and Game 2, 126-117.
Jeffery Thomas
The Dallas Mavericks were not able to steal one of the road games in Golden State and now return home in an 0-2 hole in the series. The third quarter was the difference in Game 2 as the Warriors were able to cut a 14-point halftime deficit down to 2 by the start of the fourth quarter. The most important player in this game was an unexpected source in Kevin Looney who had a career-high 21 points. The Mavs just don’t have the interior defense to stop the Warriors in the paint, even when Golden State goes with the small ball attack.
Dallas is being outscored 62-106 in the paint in this series and outrebounded 65-94. It’s a familiar situation to last series when the Mavs went down 0-2 to the Phoenix Suns before winning 4 of the next 5 but this Warriors team is a whole different beast and I just don’t see lightning striking twice. With that being said, the Warriors are prone to taking a game off in a series and I think this is the one that the Mavs can steal with their crowd behind them.
Jeffery’s NBA Pick: Dallas Mavericks (-142)
Noah Dunlap
After collapsing and letting the Golden State Warriors erase a 19-point deficit in Game 2 and manage to get the win at home, to take a 2-0 series lead, the Dallas Mavericks now return to Texas and have to find a way to regroup in what has become a must-win Game 3. Dropping the first two on the road is not great, but it’s at least acceptable, although if you go down that route it does put you in a must-win situation for Game 3, as falling down 0-3 in the series basically means it’s done. The question I have for the Mavs in this one is whether or not Luka Doncic can keep things going, and whether they can get the defense needed to help him along the way. Luka looked gassed towards the end of Game 2, and you’d like to think that a day off did him some good, but we’ll have to wait and see. The one concern I have with the Dallas performance from Friday night was the fact that despite getting a ton of help from Jalen Brunson, it still wasn’t enough in the end. They’re still in the position of needing a similar performance from one of their role players, as well as a great night from Luka in order to pull off the win, which is certainly a tall task.
For Golden State, the plan remains the same, which is being led by Steph Curry, while getting some help along the way from Jordan Poole and Klay Thompson, and being led defensively by Draymond Green. With the Warriors, there’s virtually never any real question that the offense is going to show up, but the question has always been the defense. I don’t think there’s much question that they’re the better team here, but up 2-0, and on the road, I’m worried about how much effort they put into this one. I could see them falling asleep in this one, and rebounding in Game 4, in order to have the chance to close out in Game 5, at home. With the must-win nature of this one, and just being happy to be back in Dallas, give me Luka and the Mavs to go ahead and take care of business here, to tighten things up in the series, at this for now.
Noah’s NBA Pick: Dallas Mavericks -2.5 (-114)
Tony Battalio
The Golden State Warriors look like they are on their way to getting back to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2019. They are healthy and they are cruising through this Western Conference Finals series and have a 2-0 lead heading to Dallas for Game 3. The Warriors are only another ring or two away from establishing themselves as the greatest dynasty of the modern era in the National Basketball Association in my opinion.
The Dallas Mavericks have made it this far, but at some point they were going to hit a wall. That wall came in the form of two of the greatest three point shooters in the history of the National Basketball Association. Luka Doncic is a great player and is quite possibly the future of the league, but at the end of the day he wasn’t going to be able to beat the Warriors alone. As for the result of Game 3 of this series, I think the Warriors will grab another win and go up 3-0.
Tony’s NBA Pick: Golden State Warriors (+120)
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*Odds and spreads correct at time of publication, courtesy of FanDuel.
