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(Photo by Stacy Revere\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The NBA preseason starts a long way from Texas for these two teams. The Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets play twice at The Venetian Arena in Macao as the NBA China Games 2026: Friday, October 9, at 8:00 a.m. ET and Sunday, October 11, at 6:00 a.m. ET. Both games are on NBA TV. They are also the first exhibition games for either team, and a dress rehearsal with an edge, because the same two clubs open the regular season against each other in Houston on October 21.<\/p>\n
Anyone looking for a point spread will have to wait. As of Wednesday morning, none of FanDuel, BetRivers, Fanatics or LetsBetMD had priced either Macao game: no moneyline, no spread, no total. That is not a loss. A preseason opener played at breakfast time in the US, with two stars coming off torn ACLs, is a poor place to put real money. The season-long markets on these two teams are where the prices can be judged properly, and that is where the best bets below come from.<\/p>\n
What Is At Stake For Dallas<\/p>\n
The headline is Kyrie Irving. The nine-time All-Star has not played since tearing his left ACL on March 3, 2025, and has been cleared for the China Games with no restrictions after 19 months out. Friday should be the first time he and Cooper Flagg, the 2025 No. 1 pick and reigning Rookie of the Year, play together.<\/p>\n
Almost everything around them is new. Dallas went 26-56 last season, its worst finish in eight years, then hired Masai Ujiri as team president and Dusty May as head coach, making May the first coach to jump straight from college to an NBA bench since 2019. The roster has six newcomers, including No. 9 overall pick Morez Johnson Jr., Spanish first-round rookie Sergio de Larrea and backup point guard Marcus Sasser. The concern is at center: Dereck Lively II had surgery on his right foot in December, was not cleared for the start of training camp and has played just 43 games over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
These two games matter more to Dallas than to Houston. A first-year coach needs every minute he can get with a lineup that has never played together, so the Mavericks have more reason to give their main players real run.<\/p>\n
What Is At Stake For Houston<\/p>\n
Houston arrives as the finished product by comparison. The Rockets won 52 games last season and did it without Fred VanVleet, who tore his right ACL in September 2025 and missed the entire year, and with Steven Adams limited to 32 games before season-ending ankle surgery in January. Both are back. Marcus Smart and Bogdan Bogdanovic were added for depth behind a core of Kevin Durant, two-time All-Star Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson.<\/p>\n
The flaw in the resume is the postseason: two straight first-round exits. That is a question for April, though, not for October. The plan with VanVleet is to manage his workload early, so heavy minutes in Macao would be a surprise, and Durant, who ranked third in the NBA at 36.4 minutes per game last season, has nothing to prove in an exhibition.<\/p>\n
Mavericks Vs Rockets Odds<\/p>\n
With the game unpriced, the table shows the outright markets on both teams at US sportsbooks. FanDuel and BetRivers have title prices only, Fanatics carries the full menu, and LetsBetMD has no NBA futures listed. It always pays to line up several online sportsbooks<\/a> before taking a futures price, and the title market shows why: the Rockets are +3000 at FanDuel and +4500 at Fanatics.<\/p>\n If a game line does go up before Friday, the approach should be cautious. Flagg had 34 points and 12 rebounds against Houston in January, and Dallas has the stronger motive to play its starters, so a Mavericks moneyline at plus money would be worth a look. Laying a price on either side of an exhibition is not.<\/p>\n Best BetsRockets Over 47.5 Wins<\/p>\n This is the number that stands out. Houston won 52 games with VanVleet out for the whole season and Adams gone by January. For the Under to cash, the Rockets would have to be at least five wins worse with both of them healthy and with Smart and Bogdanovic added. At -105 at Fanatics, the Over is the best bet on the board. The risk is age and mileage: Durant carried a huge minutes load last season, and VanVleet is returning from a major knee injury with his workload being managed. A cushion of four wins on last season’s total covers a fair amount of that.<\/p>\n Mavericks Over 34.5 Wins<\/p>\n Dallas needs nine more wins than last season to clear this, which sounds like a lot until the context is added: those 26 wins came with Irving sidelined for the entire season and Flagg in his rookie year. An unrestricted Irving, a second-year Flagg and a deeper roster make 35 wins a reasonable floor rather than a ceiling. The price is -116 at Fanatics on both sides, so the book is not leaning either way. I would keep this one to a smaller stake than the Rockets bet, because the risks are real: a 34-year-old guard coming back from 19 months out, a first-year NBA coach and no certainty on Lively.<\/p>\n Mavericks To Finish Third In The Southwest<\/p>\n The top of the division looks settled. San Antonio is -1000 to win it and Houston is -270 to finish second, which leaves third place between Dallas, Memphis and New Orleans. Fanatics makes the Mavericks +125 to take it, and for a team with a 34.5 win line in that company the plus money is fair. This is one for small stakes, and it should not be doubled up heavily with the win total, since both bets fail together if Irving or Flagg misses significant time.<\/p>\n Prices To Pass On<\/p>\n The Rockets at +4500 to win the title at Fanatics will tempt some, and it is 50% more than FanDuel pays at +3000, but a team with back-to-back first-round exits has to show something in the playoffs before that becomes a bet. The Mavericks to make the playoffs at +210 is closer to a real option, yet the win total gets the same opinion down without needing Dallas to survive the Western Conference play-in. Houston to make the playoffs at -556 is not a serious price for anyone.<\/p>\n BetBest PriceSportsbookRockets Over 47.5 regular-season wins-105<\/a>Fanatics<\/a>Mavericks Over 34.5 regular-season wins-116<\/a>Fanatics<\/a>Mavericks to finish 3rd in Southwest Division (small stake)+125<\/a>Fanatics<\/a><\/p>\n Futures tie money up until April, so it is worth checking current sportsbook promos<\/a> before placing them, and the best betting apps<\/a> make it easier to act quickly if a Macao game line appears late in the week. Odds were checked on Wednesday, October 7, and can move before tip-off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Photo by Stacy Revere\/Getty Images) The NBA preseason starts a long way from Texas for these two teams.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-919465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}