Seasons are on the line when the Pistons host the Lakers on Monday for a 7 p.m. ET tip. The Pistons are favored by 4.5 points, while the over-under, or total points Vegas thinks will be scored, is 216. Detroit has won three of four, but trails Miami by 5.5 games for the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference with nine games to go.
The Lakers have 10 games left, but trail No. 8 Utah in the West by nine. They need to run the table to have any chance at sneaking into the playoffs.
Before you back either team, you need to see what the SportsLine Projection Model is picking. The advanced computer simulates each game 10,000 times and locked in against-the-spread, over-under and money-line picks.
For Monday, the computer has generated a coveted top-rated spread pick that's hitting in nearly two-thirds of simulations. We can also tell you it is also projecting the score to finish under the total of 215 -- that one is hitting almost 70 percent of the time.
The computer has taken into account the Lakers' recent slide. L.A. snapped a four-game losing streak by beating the hapless Grizzlies 100-93 on Saturday.
The Lakers will again be without leading scorer Brandon Ingram (groin), who will sit out his 12th straight game. The team is a respectable 5-6 in that stretch thanks in part to the play of Julius Randle, who has led the team in scoring six times.
With or without Ingram, L.A. doesn't need to rely on one person picking up all the slack -- seven players are averaging in double figures for the balanced unit.
Detroit has had mixed results since acquiring Blake Griffin from the Clippers. The Pistons won their first four with Griffin in the lineup, but have since gone 7-14 and are on the brink of being eliminated from postseason consideration.
Only three of their final nine games are against playoff teams. If the turnaround is going to happen, it needs to start Monday.
So which side should you back? Visit SportsLine now to see which side of the Lakers-Pistons spread hits almost two-thirds of the time, all from a computer model with a coveted top-rated pick.