Team A is up by five points with six seconds left to go. Team B has the basketball. There are no five-point plays, so the winner is already decided. But there’s a point spread. Team A is favored by four.
You already know how this ends.
Late last night, Jamal Murray caught an inbounds pass under his own basket, raced down the floor and flung an off-balanced, step back three from the right wing.
"[Murray] is sitting on 47,” said TNT play-by-play announcer Brian Anderson. “He’ll pull the three, he’s got the three. 50 point game... but this one belongs to the Utah Jazz.”
Utah Jazz 129, Denver Nuggets 127. Team A wins, Team B covers.
It was a pretty mundane call because in Anderson’s brain, the game was already over. Thousands of people around the country felt a lot more emotions.[[ad:athena]]
“People were either flipping out or celebrating like crazy over a win they didn’t deserve,” professional bettor James Alberino told NBC Sports. “That was a soul crushing shot for a lot of people. The Jazz were clearly the right side in that game. For you not to cover that -3 with Murray hitting a garbage three was insane.”
Oh Jazz -3 soul crushing if you had that.
— Spread Investor (@spreadinvestor) August 24, 2020
“That Nuggets decision was really huge for us,” Westgate SuperBook executive director John Murray explained to NBC Sports. “The Jazz winning but not covering was a great result. And that $64,000 series price parlay we took on Nuggets/Celtics/Clippers is on life support.”
Murray’s shot was just one of three buzzer beaters yesterday, all of which affected the bottom lines at sportsbooks around the country.
Joel Embiid drilled a 30-footer with two seconds left to give the Sixers a backdoor cover or push. Philadelphia bettors holding +6.5 or +7 were ecstatic after Embiid’s three made it a 110-106 win for Boston. Then, Luka Doncic stole the show with an insane three-pointer to give the Mavericks an outright win over the Clippers 135-133. Dallas opened as high as +300 on the moneyline at most shops.
“That killed endless Clippers moneyline parlays everywhere,” Murray added.
For a guy like Alberino, who bets on sports for a living, the sweats will never end.
“The other night, I bet the Under 224.5 with the Blazers and Lakers. It was at 210 with under two minutes left,” Alberino recited. “Then the Blazers were fouling down 11 points! It got to a point where it was at 222 with ten seconds to go. C.J. McCollum shoots a layup instead of a three. 224. I covered by a half point.”
Just another series of reminders that some bets aren’t safe until the clock strikes 00.0.
