Spurs favourite for NBA finals

And then there were two. In contrasting styles, the San Antonio Spurs and the defending champions, the Detroit Pistons, will face off in the NBA Finals, starting on Thursday night.

The Spurs cruised into the finals with a 4-1 thrashing of the Phonenix Suns, but the Pistons had to go to a seventh-game decider before seeing off Miami Heat and Shaquille O'Neal to set up an intriguing encounter. Not surprisingly, the Spurs are the favourites with Bet365, at 10/23 (1.43), while the Pistons are 19/10 (2.90) to make it back-to-back Finals victories.

The teams met twice in the regular season, and honours were even. San Antonio won 80-77 at home in December, while the Pistons won 110-101 at home in March. The defending champions will hope that momentum is in their favour, but they will have to break down a Spurs defence which withstood a battering from the Suns' Amare Stoudemire, who broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record for a debut Conference Finals appearance, with an average of 37 points per game.

Tim Duncan will be the man the Pistons have to stop, while Detroit will be hoping for big performances from Richard Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace. The way they saw off the LA Lakers - and Shaq - in last year's finals suggests that they shouldn't be underestimated. The Spurs were champions in 1999 and 2003, while the Pistons will be emulate the Isaiah Thomas-led team of 1989 and 1990 by retaining the crown.

With the Spurs such strong favourites, it's natural that a convincing series win is favoured by the bookies, with a 4-2 victory the 5/2 (3.50) favourite, just ahead of 3/1 (4.00) bet for it to end 4-3. A 4-1 win is an 11/2 (6.50) chance while 4-0 is 8/1. In contrast, the Pistons are 7/1 (8.00) to win 4-1, and 15/2 (8.50) to win 4-3. Bet365 go 8/1 (9.00) that they win 4-2, while it's 25/1 (26.00) that they whitewash the Spurs.

Should it go to seven games, the final encounter will be in San Antonio, and the Spurs also have the advantage of playing the first two games at home. The first game is on Thursday and Bet365 make the Spurs a 9/10 (1.90) favourite to win, giving the Pistons a six-point start. It's also 9-10 that there are more than 179 points in the game, the same price as less than 179.