NBA
NBA Betting Guide for Tuesday 11/9/21: Delving Into All 3 Games

Betting on the NBA can get a little overwhelming throughout the season because there are games every day, and there's just a lot to track throughout the season and entering every night -- spreads, over/unders, injuries, and so on.

But you can rely on numberFire to help. We have a detailed betting algorithm that projects out games to see how often certain betting lines hit, and you can track line movement within games and compare odds over at the oddsFire section of the site.

Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's games? (All odds from NBA Finals odds.)

Milwaukee Bucks at Philadelphia 76ers

numberFire's model is very big on this game and is siding with the home team, the Philadelphia 76ers.

The model here views the 76ers' spread (+5.5) as a five-star recommendation and actually sees them as 64.8% likely to get the win. That also turns their +198 moneyline into a five-star recommendation.

Those bets have expected returns of 46.6% and 93.0%, respectively.

Yes, this is in spite of the lengthy list of absences for the Sixers.

However, since 2016, home underdogs with a one-day rest disadvantage have covered at a 51.0% clip by an average of 1.1 points, so that's something.

Doing what I can to adjust not only for the 76ers' absences but also the Milwaukee Bucks' for reasonable sample sizes, my model sees this as a toss-up that sides barely with the 76ers after a home-court advantage adjustment. My model, then, has the Sixers at 53.4% likely to win.

Both my model and numberFire's likes the over (217.5), as well. numberFire's model rates it as a three-star recommendation and as 65.9% likely to occur. My model rates the over as 56.9% likely.

Atlanta Hawks at Utah Jazz

The 4-7 Atlanta Hawks slot in at 13th in numberFire's power rankings; the 7-3 Utah Jazz are 3rd.

The Jazz get a day-of-rest advantage over the Hawks, who are on a back-to-back, and the Jazz are at home, as well. That explains why they're 8.5-point favorites.

In all, numberFire's model views the Jazz as 83.3% likely to pick up the win, which turns their moneyline (-360) into a three-star recommendation overall. The algo also likes the Jazz to cover at a 56.9% rate. Those lead to expected returns of 6.4% and 8.6%, respectively.

The moneyline, being such a high probability, is the preferred route, given the three-star recommendation. That means a three-unit wager is justified.

Of the 12 most comparable games to this one in our database, teams representing the Jazz won 11 of them.

While the Jazz' point differential (+9.1) is scaled back to +2.3 when comparing it to the spread, they're still overperforming as favorites, in general.

We see the opposite with the Hawks. Their point differential is -3.3, and they're a -5.1 on average against spread expectations.

Portland Trail Blazers at Los Angeles Clippers

The model at numberFire is a big fan of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Despite their 5-4 record, they're 7th in our power rankings and are considered 70.9% likely to beat the Portland Trail Blazers (5-5, 11th in our rankings) at home.

That makes their moneyline (-142) a three-star recommendation with an expected return of 20.9%.

The Clippers boast a +4.4 point differential, besting the Blazers' +2.9.

However, the Clippers have outperformed the spread by 0.8 points per game, on average, and the Blazers have slightly played worse than expectation, based on their spreads (-0.5).

Since 2016, slight home favorites (3 points or fewer) have won 54.2% of games and covered at a 51.6% rate.

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