Jim Feist

Tampa Bay and the Yankees have both clinched playoff spots. The Rays look to hold onto the top spot as they have a 4.5 game lead in the AL East over the Yankees. Both teams have been hot with the Rays winning seven of their last 10 and the Yankees winning eight of their last 10. Blake Snell goes today for the Rays. Snell is 4-1 in his 10 starts with a 3.05 ERA. Snell has allowed just one run over his last 10 2/3 innings. Seth Lugo will toe the rubber for the Yankees. Lugo is 1-1 in his five starts with a 5.30 ERA and 1.500 WHIP. Lugo has been hit rather hard of late, allowing nine runs over his last 7 innings of work. I like the visitor in this one. Take the Rays.

The late game here tonight has the Seattle Storm taking on the Minnesota Lynx. Seattle will back to 100% health tonight and when that happens, they are unbeatable since they entered the bubble. This game had to be postponed from Sunday because of a Covid test that came back inconclusive. With their two big stars of Stewart and Bird both playing together, they are 10-1 this season. Health may not be as good for the Lynx here tonight. The Lynx might be without one of their best players in Center Sylvia Fowles tonight. Fowles is questionable tonight with a calf injury. She averages 13.7 ppg and 2.7 rebounds per game. Seattle has been good to me all season and I'm taking them here tonight. Play Seattle.

The Connecticut Sun shocked the LV Aces 87-62 in game one of their semi-final playoffs. Now they look to take a 2-0 lead here tonight. The Aces were the no 1 seed compared to just 7th seed for the Sun. Don't expect the same here tonight. The Aces were the best team with the MVP of the league and they will likely have receive a wake-up call after that game one fiasco. I expect the Aces to get the scoring back here tonight and put up big numbers. Take the OVER.

The Denver Nuggets sure don't like making things easy on themselves. They had to come from 1-3 down to the Jazz and the Clippers to win both series in seven games. Now they are down 0-2 to the Lakers and in real danger of going down 0-3 after this game. The Nuggets lost the opener 114-126 and then made a much better showing in game two, but still game up short, 103-105. For the Lakers, you would have to go back to 1969 to find the last time they lost a best of seven series in which they led 2-0. The improvement the Nuggets can build on is their defense, which did a much better job in game two holding the Lakers to just 105 points. The Nuggets defense also forced 24 turnovers after getting just 12 in game one. The Nuggets know this is the game they have to win and that means defense has to lead the way. I look for a similar game to the last one and for me, that's the under. Play UNDER.

The Celtics were desperate for a win in game three and they got it, beating the Heat 117-106. The Heat had taken games one and two of this series and now the Celtics look to even it at two apiece here tonight. The Miami Heat have used a baffling zone defense that had confused the Celtics through two games. However, the Celtics finally figured it out in game three as they got the win. The Celtics would have been a good under team if they could have stayed out of all the OT's they have played. I'm going to stick with what I have liked in the playoffs and that's the UNDER here tonight.