Dallas Mavericks vs. Houston Rockets Game 2 Odds Preview, Betting Stats

The Houston Rockets hope to continue their recent domination of the Dallas Mavericks and go up 2-0 with another victory in Game 2 of their Western Conference first-round playoff series Tuesday.

The Rockets beat the Mavericks for the fifth time in six meetings both straight up and against the spread in a 118-108 win in Game 1 as 9.5-point favorites at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark Saturday.

Dallas battled back in the second quarter to cut a 13-point deficit to four at halftime, but Houston was able to ultimately cover the spread thanks to a huge disparity in its favor at the free-throw line. The Rockets made 32 of 45 shots at the charity stripe, while the Mavs attempted only 17, converting 14 of them.

In fact, Houston leading scorer James Harden had as many free-throw attempts as the entire Dallas team and made one more.

Harden led the way with a team-high 24 points for the Rockets, but he got a lot of help from his teammates, with six others also scoring in double figures. Corey Brewer was the biggest surprise off the bench for Houston, scoring 13 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter, including three three-pointers that prevented the Mavs from staying within single digits.

Dirk Nowitzki scored a team-high 24 points for Dallas and also saw six of his teammates score in double figures. However, four of them scored 12 or fewer, including former Houston forward Chandler Parsons, who made only five of 15 shots from the field to finish with 10 points.

Parsons (knee) and reserve guard Devin Harris (toe) did not practice on Monday after aggravating injuries, and they are both listed as questionable for the Game 2 Mavericks vs. Rockets betting matchup.

Bettors saw an exceptionally high-scoring Game 1 by the teams, as the total went over on the NBA betting lines for the first time in five meetings. The four regular-season games between them this year all went under the total, with none of them finishing with more than 211 points.

In the first two meetings to start the season, both played at the Toyota Center in Houston, and neither team scored 100 points. Those first two games were also each decided by five points or fewer, and the 10-point margin of victory in Game 1 was the first double-digit win for the Rockets in the last 10 meetings, according to the Odds Shark NBA database.