NBA Betting Preview: Houston Rockets vs. Golden State Warriors Game 2 Odds

With 13 wins in the past 14 meetings with the eighth-seeded Houston Rockets, the top-seeded Golden State Warriors are not as concerned about winning this first-round playoff series as they are about keeping reigning NBA MVP Stephen Curry healthy for another potential championship run.

Curry tweaked his ankle in a 104-78 Game 1 victory Saturday but still scored 24 points in 20 minutes. The defending-champion Warriors easily covered the spread as 13-point home favorites.

Golden State is listed as a consensus 13-point favorite for Game 2 on Monday at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark, with Curry proclaiming himself good to go, per Ethan Sherwood Strauss of ESPN.com. How long he actually plays is another story, though, because head coach Steve Kerr needs to have his star as close to 100 percent as possible for the later rounds for a shot at back-to-back titles.

However, it is worth mentioning that the Warriors beat the Rockets 114-110 without Curry as 3.5-point road underdogs on the NBA betting lines back on December 31.

Regardless, there are also some serious concerns about Houston heading into Game 2, especially after shooting guard James Harden totaled just 17 points and failed to make it to the free-throw line.

Harden was the league’s second-leading scorer during the regular season behind Curry, averaging 29 points, and got to the charity stripe an NBA-high 10.2 times per game. He attempted at least three free throws in every game except the All-Star Game, in which he also failed to earn a shot.

As a team, the Rockets made just 35.7 percent of their shots from the field (30-of-84) and missed half their free-throw attempts (12-of-24) in Game 1. Center Dwight Howard was their only other player to score in double figures with 14 points while also grabbing 11 rebounds.

They have now gone 4-10 against the spread in the past 14 meetings, according to the Odds Shark NBA Database, failing to beat the line in four of the last five after covering three of the first four games in the Western Conference Finals a year ago.

The first two games of that series were decided by a combined five points in Oakland before Golden State won Game 3 at Houston 115-80 as 1.5-point road dogs.