TST Best Bets: April 22, 2026

The start of the NBA Playoffs has been nothing short of unpredictable. 

Four of the six series through two games are knotted up at 1-1, and of the two teams down 0-2 in their series, one—the Houston Rockets—entered the series as a -800 favorite.

On Wednesday, the Phoenix Suns will attempt to join the other three play-in teams in stealing a game on the road to head back home with home-court advantage. 

However, the odds are stacked up against the Suns, who are massive +17 underdogs against the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Clutch Player of the Year, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. 

The most shocking result of any Game 1 in these playoffs was the Orlando Magic thoroughly outplaying the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed, the Detroit Pistons

Detroit got more than enough from All-Star Cade Cunningham, who dropped 39 points in the loss, but will need its supporting cast to step up in a major way to avoid going down 0-2. 

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First Pick: Oklahoma City Thunder -17 over Phoenix Suns

Rundown: It’s hard to stomach backing such a huge favorite with a spread like this, but Phoenix’s chances in this series look incredibly dire. 

The Suns held Gilgeous-Alexander, the likely back-to-back Most Valuable Player of the Year, to just 5-for-18 shooting and were never really in the game, being blown out by 35 points.

The Suns were without pivotal role players in Mark Williams and Grayson Allen in Game 1, and now their key perimeter defender in Jordan Goodwin also enters Game 2 banged up with a questionable injury designation. 

Meanwhile, the Thunder have been used to covering giant point spreads all year. 

Game 1 was OKC’s third win of 25 points or more over Phoenix this season, and Thunder have covered as favorites in the last five games they did not rest their starters. 

With the reigning MVP of the league unlikely to record back-to-back bad playoff games, expect Game 2 to end in another dominant Thunder victory. 

Second Pick: Detroit Pistons -8.5 over Orlando Magic

Rundown: The Magic’s calling card in recent years has been to rely on their physicality to play suffocating defense against the right matchups, and that’s exactly what they did in Game 1. 

Taking advantage of Detroit’s lack of offensive creators outside of Cunningham, Orlando essentially shut off the paint for anyone but the 6-foot-6 point guard. 

All-Star Detroit big Jalen Duren struggled the most in Game 1, being limited to just eight points and seven rebounds in the loss. 

However, despite how bad of a start to the series the Pistons had, the Magic’s inconsistency all season cannot be overlooked. 

Just in the past 10 days, Orlando suffered a massively disappointing loss in a game with major playoff implications against the Boston Celtics’ backups and followed that up by losing to the Philadelphia 76ers without Joel Embiid in the No. 7 vs. No. 8 seed play-in matchup. 

The Magic are now riding high with back-to-back big wins over the Charlotte Hornets and Pistons, but expect their rollercoaster of a season to take its next dip on Wednesday. 

While the Pistons struggled with the Magic’s defensive intensity in Game 1, Detroit actually has the significantly better defense, ranking second in the league in net rating. 

While Detroit’s role players are due for a better performance, Cunningham is much more likely to repeat his excellent Game 1 performance than Orlando’s Paolo Banchero, whose struggles with his outside shot should be able to be exploited in this series.