NBA Betting Guide for Friday 3/18/22: Adjusting for Injuries and Seeking Value
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. You can also track spread bet percentages at NBA odds.
Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's games? (All odds from NBA odds.)
Portland Trail Blazers at Brooklyn Nets
Over (228.0) - 3 stars
Portland Trail Blazers (+14.5) - 3 stars
Of the two bets listed here, I'm more interested in the over. When I input high-leverage, injury-adjusted data since the deadline into my model, it likes a total of 236.2 points, clearing the total of 228.0 pretty easily.
numberFire's model likes the total to tally up to 234.9, leading to a three-star play out of five (i.e. a three-unit suggestion). The over is rating out as 62.7% likely with an expected return of 19.7%.
The algo here also likes the Blazers to cover a huge 14.5-point spread on the road against the Brooklyn Nets. It's 65.7% likely to occur.
Going back to that adjusted recent data my model anticipated the spread at 11.5 points rather than 14.5.
Since 2016, road teams that are underdogs of 14 to 15 points have covered at a 53.0% clip, including a 68.8% rate this season.
Los Angeles Clippers at Utah Jazz
Utah Jazz (-5.5) - 3 stars
Jazz Moneyline (-225) - 5 stars
The Jazz list Donovan Mitchell and Bojan Bogdanovic as out. The Los Angeles Clippers are without plenty of options themselves.
numberFire's algo is still keen on the Jazz to TCOB (take care of business).
Our model views the Jazz as 64.1% likely to cover and as 82.2% likely to win outright. That outright win probability thwarts the implied odds at the -225 moneyline (69.2%).
Utah's 25-11 home record comes with just a 41.2% cover rate, but that is tied to a spread-adjusted point differential of only -0.4.
The Clippers on the road have a 52.8% cover rate...by just 0.8 points on average.
Among the 25 most comparable games to this one in our database, teams representing the Jazz are 23-2 outright and 19-6 against the spread. Whew.
Chicago Bulls at Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Suns (-5.0) - 3 stars
Suns Moneyline (-230) - 5 stars
We've got a similar situation with the Chicago Bulls/Phoenix Suns game that we just laid out in the Clippers/Jazz game.
It's a moderate home spread with a sizable moneyline. Despite that, our model is siding with the home team even though said home team isn't 100%.
Notably, Chris Paul is out. Adjusting recent data for leverage and injuries, we see the Suns with a +10.6 net rating in games without Paul and with Devin Booker since the deadline. That comes with just a 5-3 record, so the win-loss total is misleading here.
numberFire's algorithm likes the Suns by 10.3 points, making them 63.4% likely to cover.
They're also 82.8% likely to get the win, again besting the implied moneyline odds (69.7%).
