On Saturday night, the Philadelphia 76ers will host the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Wells Fargo Center. The Sixers are home from the longest road trip of the season, a trip they survived without having Joel Embiid available. The Timberwolves are playing the second of a road back-to-back after losing in Charlotte to the Hornets last night.

Let’s get into our Sixers vs. Timberwolves betting pick with player prop predictions, odds, and analysis for this November 27, 2021 matchup.

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Sixers vs. Timberwolves Betting Pick (November 27, 2021)

There are so many gambling truisms. Too many. Every player is looking for that seminal truth that can keep them from falling into the hole, or slumping, or even failing to win as much as he or she should during the all-too-rare hot streak. Once I left a craps table up about $500 after the shooter held the dice for 45 minutes, and I was feeling really good about myself. But as I left, the croupier said to me “you were here at the very beginning, you should have cleared $5,000.” Ouch.

So here is one of those truisms: The team coming back from a long road trip is probably going to play worse than you expect them to play because, well, they’ve been on the road for two weeks (or more). The players get home and immediately they have some or all of these elements to deal with:

  • The married guys have to reconnect with their wives and in some cases their kids. It’s easy for the 9-to-5 guy or the single guy to blow this off as easy, but please believe me when I tell you that it is not even close to being that easy. The spouse who has been home with the kids for two straight weeks is DONE with those kids, and you have to do something to make that time up when all you really want to do is lay on the couch and watch sports and veg out. Not happening.
  • The young single guys have their own problems. They are returning to a place where they can no longer credibly ignore the voice messages they are getting from friends and female friends and heaven knows who else. The road creates an excuse for being out of contact. When you get home after two weeks, that invisible shield is disabled and you are now accountable.
  • The old single guys, as always, probably have it the worst. If you’re a veteran NBA player who isn’t presently in a committed relationship but who, um, has child support and parental responsibilities (such as that might be), MAN…have fun with the mail that was delivered while you were away and/or the voice mails and texts and emails you pretended weren’t happening as you were just living your best life in NBA cities where you had “friends” everywhere you went.

Add all of this up, and there’s a reason why most of the time, the play is to pick against the home team in that first game back off the road. All of them are still reacclimating to the home time zone, the coaching staff is trying to give them enough time to relax but still wanting them to be competition-ready, and their heads are everywhere but on task.

So yeah, most of the time, the play in this game would be (save us Jesus) the Minnesota Timberwolves. But there’s a variable that the truism here doesn’t account for: Joel Embiid, hopefully, is playing tonight.

Did you ever watch old WWF or not-as-old WWE clips, where an elite wrestler is in a tag team match and his partner is getting the ever-living snot kicked out of him, and the stud is just DYING to tag into the match, but it takes forever to happen and his partner almost gets pinned three times, and then FINALLY, the superstar gets in the ring and straight up cleans house? He hits the guy in the ring, he cheap shots the partner, he slides under the ropes and catches the opponents’ manager in the jaw with a power slide…yeah, that’s what Embiid is going to do in this game after missing nine straight games and watching his teammates scuffle without him. If you said Sixers -15, we’d say, it’s difficult but not impossible.

All that said, if Embiid doesn’t play tonight, this piece is fish wrapping.

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Sixers vs. Timberwolves Odds

Here’s the line for the Sixers and Timberwolves at FanDuel Sportsbook:

  • Point Spread: Sixers -5 (-110), Timberwolves +5 (-110)
  • Moneyline: Sixers -200, Timberwolves +168
  • Total: 216

Bets We Like With a Sixers Win

Sixers to Win and Under 216 Total Points (+167, FanDuel Sportsbook)

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The Timberwolves gave up 133 points in Charlotte last night, but as it happens that game was an aberration. In their prior five games, they gave up 101, 96, 95, 90 and 97. Add in the Sixers’ likely road rust, and the under is probably the correct side whether the Sixers win or not.

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Bets We Like Independent of Outcome

Karl-Anthony Towns Under 8.5 Rebounds (+105, Caesars Sportsbook)

Towns will get his points, and that’s fine. Probably most of those points will come in the fourth quarter after Embiid has his knees packed in ice on the bench with seven minutes left and the Sixers up 25. What Towns won’t get are these rebounds, because between Embiid and Drummond, Towns has as much chance to hit this prop as a Weight Watchers client in a bakery.

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Joel Embiid First Field Goal of the Game (+460, DraftKings Sportsbook)

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Embiid doesn’t much care for Karl-Anthony Towns, who talks a lot for a guy who is stuck on a perennial loser franchise in a city no one would ever go to by choice. Prince had to write dozens of impossibly great songs just to have the chance to get out of Minnesota. Anyway, Embiid has had two weeks to rest his body. He will have lift in his legs and he will want to put up some “I made SportsCenter” numbers in this game. It starts with the first possession.

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Tyrese Maxey Under 18.5 Points (-105, FOX Bet)

Our love for Tyrese Maxey is real and it’s spectacular. Maxey is the karmic payoff for the Sixers drafting Markelle Fultz ahead of Jayson Tatum. Maxey is, if we’re being honest, more fun to watch than Brown. Maxey plays like a nine-year league veteran. He takes care of the ball, he only takes shots he thinks he can make, he makes his free throws…it’s orgasmic. But the prop tonight is carrying some of the inherent weight of Maxey’s recent offensive explosions where Embiid was absent. Maxey won’t get as many shots tonight, he won’t make as many shots tonight, and that’s totally OK. Under this number isn’t an alarm bell, it’s an understanding that Embiid is going to go off.

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Sixers vs. Timberwolves Prediction

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If Embiid plays, the Sixers win and cover. If he doesn’t, they lose outright. This entire piece is premised on Embiid playing, and so we’re going all-in with the same game parlay.

Pick: Sixers to win and under 216 points (+180, Barstool Sportsbook)

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