NBA Betting Tips: 76ers and Bucks looking to survive

If you were with us yesterday, you'll know that I correctly tipped up the Boston Celtics -14.5 against the Miami Heat, as well as the Dallas Mavericks -3.5 against the LA Clippers, so let's see if I can follow that up today.

Our NBA betting tips for Thursday focus on two Eastern Conference first-round match-ups, as the Philadelphia 76ers need to win against the New York Knicks to avoid being eliminated, while same scenario applies to the Milwaukee Bucks in their encounter against the Indiana Pacers.

Indiana Pacers -8.5 vs Milwaukee Bucks @ 1/1

The Milwaukee Bucks forced a game six against the Indiana Pacers with a 115-92 victory, but once again they're facing a win or go home type scenario.

That victory in Milwaukee was without the Bucks' two stars in Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, and they're both likely to miss out again here. That means Milwaukee need their role players to step up once again to force a game seven, but it may be a step too far.

The Pacers weren't brilliant in game five with Pascal Siakam and Tyrese Haliburton only mustering up 28 points between them, but Indiana will be back in front of their home support for this clash, and I'm expecting a much-improved display.

Indiana have won both games in their own arena so far this series, so they'll be full of confidence that they can get the job done, and that blip in form in game five could be attributed to a lack of postseason experience.

Milwaukee will dig deep to try and make this game competitive, but this is a golden opportunity for Indiana to eliminate the 2021 champions.

Philadelphia 76ers -4.5 vs New York Knicks @ 21/20

The Knicks will be kicking themselves that they threw away a six-point lead with under 30 seconds to go in game five, ultimately losing 112-106 to the 76ers. However, they have another chance to send Philly packing here, but this time they must do it on enemy turf in the Wells Fargo Center.

Jalen Brunson continues to shine for New York but as a unit, the Knicks were poor last time out, especially given what we've seen from them in the regular season. For the Sixers, Tyrese Maxey was the key man, hitting back-to-back three-pointers in the final 30 seconds of game five to bring his team back into the contest, and I suspect he'll have a big part to play on Thursday night.

Bojan Bogdanovic underwent season-ending foot surgery on Wednesday, which will be a significant blow for New York here, as the veteran forward joins Mitchell Robinson and Julius Randle on the Knicks' injury list.

There's been hardly anything to separate these two teams over the course of this series - Philadelphia have scored two points more than the Knicks so far across all five matches, and I have them covering the spread here and winning, forcing game seven which will take place on Saturday at Madison Square Garden. In addition, Philly have covered in seven of their last 10 matches.

Check out the rest of our NBA Betting Tips here.