Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

San Antonio -12½ over Dallas

8:00 PM EST. The standings say San Antonio is 0-2 and therefore a bad team. The schedule says something else entirely. The Spurs opened against Oklahoma City, then lost 114-110 to Houston on Friday night in a game that came down to the final possession, when Amen Thompson met Victor Wembanyama at the rim and erased the layup that would have sent it to overtime. That is not a team playing badly. That is a team that has run into two very good teams and come up short twice, and now it walks into Dallas to face a Mavericks roster that looks less like a rotation and more like a hospital ward.

Dallas did destroy Indiana 121-105 on Friday night, and nobody is pretending otherwise — Kyrie Irving dropped 24 points in 25 minutes, P.J. Washington added 20 and 13 rebounds, and the Mavs led by 37 at one point. But that win cost them the one player they cannot afford to lose. Cooper Flagg hurt his shoulder, coach Dusty May said he'd be evaluated "in the next couple of days," and on the second night of a back-to-back, that is a polite way of saying he is not playing. Add Dereck Lively out with a foot injury, Santi Aldama out with a knee, Tarik Biberovic out with a foot, and Caleb Martin nursing a thumb, and the Mavericks are down to a skeleton crew. The table is set for Wembanyama in a way it almost never is: Dallas is thin at center without Lively, Daniel Gafford is solid but overmatched, and the rookie Morez Johnson is being asked to guard a 7'4" alien. Wemby had 25 against Houston on Friday, and the last time he opened a season in this building he dropped 40 and 15.

The honest risk is Kyrie, because Kyrie has a history in this matchup — over 22 points and five assists a game against San Antonio for his career, including a 57-point night once upon a time — and San Antonio's own shooting has been shaky at 29.7% from three. But Dallas rested its stars early on Friday only because Indiana folded, and tonight the Mavs are the ones on no rest, missing their best young player and their starting center, against a desperate 0-2 team that needs its first win and finally gets a soft spot in the schedule to take it. Twelve and a half is a big number, but it is priced for the team Dallas was supposed to be, not the team suiting up tonight.

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