The Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors may be in for a long and contentious series. Golden State struck first by shocking Los Angeles with a four-point Game 1 victory before the Clippers rebounded with a dominant Game 2 performance that saw the team win by 40 points. The division rivals will now take their matchup upstate for two games inside the Oracle Arena on Thursday night and Sunday afternoon.

Los Angeles lost both road matchups during the regular season but was able to produce an ATS split against the team. Sportsbook.ag still has the Clippers as substantial favorite to win the series heading into Game 3. Let's take a closer look at the Clippers versus Warriors matchup and figure out the best way to squeeze some value out of the remaining games.

Series Price and Game 3 Lines

Series Price: Clippers: -320; Warriors: +260

Game 3 Lines: Clippers -1.5; Total: 215.5

The narrative of this matchup completely changed after Los Angeles' dominant 40-point blowout over the Warriors during Game 2. Heading into the series, the major question was how Golden State would adjust to life without their starting center, Andrew Bogut, who will not be in the lineup due to injury.

However, after Golden State's impressive Game 1 performance, the prevailing thought from experts flipped. If the team could continue to play a fast-paced brand of basketball, maybe it didn't need Bogut to succeed. That idea may have been short lived according to the oddsmakers, because the adjusted-series price and Game 3 lines were set heavily in Los Angeles favor.

How to wager on the series

Los Angeles is a 1.5-ponit favorite heading into Thursday's matchup, but people are forgetting just how good the Warriors really are. The team plays fast, can score with any offense in the league and when Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are on their game, the duo is almost unstoppable. Golden State's trouble is finding consistency, but at this point the oddsmakers installing the Clippers as a 1.5-point favorite and a -320 series-price favorite seems a bit off.

In the end, Golden State's lack of defense, particularly from its wing players, Curry and Thompson, will be too big of a liability for the squad to actually win this series. However, there is no reason why the Warriors won't explode during Game 3 and take a 2-1 lead, which would cause the Clippers series price to drop into a more reasonable range.

Los Angeles is the better team in this matchup, but bettors should wait to wager on the series price because the most likely outcome is that the series will be tied 2-2 heading into Game 5 next week, and the new number may be very different. As for the individual games themselves, there was only one close matchup during the four regular-season games, and the rest were decided by double-digit margins.

Regular Season Scores

Los Angeles home win: 126-115

Golden State home win: 105-103

Golden State home win: 111-92

Los Angeles home win: 111-98

Both teams can be dynamic at times, but this series will probably contain more blowouts than close games. Los Angeles covered three of the four regular-season games and is more likely, because of their solid defense, to keep games close when it loses, and win by double-digits during victories.

Many experts might believe that this series is already over, but the Warriors have enough firepower to split games at home. Over the last six postseasons, the lower-seeded team has managed to split its home games 46 percent of the time while sweeping both home games 25 percent of the time. Deciding on who to wager on for the rest of the series is your own choice, however, the Warriors are still very much alive in this matchup.

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Read more articles by George Monroy