The New York Knicks have lost eight straight and covered the spread just once during that stretch. They'll have to do without All-Star forward Kristaps Porzingis (knee injury) for the rest of the season, and I think they'll come up short here against a Magic side fighting to stay off the bottom of the Eastern Conference. They headed into the All Star break off three straight losses, but all by single digits and they've battled hard in recent weeks covering the spread in five of their last six (13-3 ATS in their last 16) games.

The Magic are expected to get Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic back from injuries Thursday, which would no doubt be a huge boost with Gordon (18.4 points) and Vucevic (17.4) ranking first and third on the team in scoring plus the latter leading the team in rebounding with 9.3.

My selection is an 8* play on Orlando Magic.