NBA Betting Guide for Thursday 12/29/22: Can the Clippers Contain the Celtics?
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. You can also track spread bet percentages at FanDuel Sportsbook.
Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's NBA odds? (All offensive rating, defensive rating, and net rating splits come from PBPStats.com and account for medium-, high-, and very high-leverage situations unless otherwise noted.)
Oklahoma City Thunder at Charlotte Hornets
Under 239.5 (-110)
Both sides in this game are pretty healthy, though we still have a pretty small sample for the Charlotte Hornets with LaMelo Ball and a few key pieces active at the same time. Kelly Oubre (doubtful) is a pretty key injury note.
The results with Ball, specifically, on the floor are a 109.4 offensive rating and a 118.7 defensive rating for an overall (with or without you) net of -3.4. That means the team has actually played better without Ball (1,336 minutes) than with him (374 minutes).
Without Oubre (583 minutes), the offense has nosedived (109.4 to 102.3), but the defense has sharply improved (118.4 with him to 103.2 without him).
As for the Oklahoma City Thunder, they have about league-average marks both offensively and defensively with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey both active.
Getting to 240 points with some shaky offenses is a bit of a tall order, and numberFire's model has the under as a four-star play.
Los Angeles Clippers at Boston Celtics
Under 227.0 (-110)
In games with both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, the Los Angeles Clippers have an offensive rating of 114.7 and a defensive rating of 105.4 (around 93% of the NBA average) for some under-friendly data.
In games with both, they're 9-3 in that split with an average score of 111.1 to 104.6 for an average point total of 215.7.
The Boston Celtics, with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown both active, are an elite offense (118.4) but a slightly better-than-average defense (112.1), as well.
They're an over-friendly team for sure, yet the combination of the two play styles puts more value on the under.
They played already in December, a game the Clippers won 113-93 in Los Angeles.
Memphis Grizzlies at Toronto Raptors
Toronto Raptors +3.0 (-110)
Toronto Raptors Moneyline (+130)
Though the Raptors list Fred VanVleet as questionable for tonight's game, he's not as big of a needle-mover as some others who are in the rotation, and that means their data is better than perception.
They enter this game against the Memphis Grizzlies as 3.0-point home underdogs. numberFire's model gives them a 46.5% chance to win outright, putting some value on their moneyline at +130.
My numbers -- accounting for all the injuries and returns from absences -- think the Raptors are slight favorites in this game overall.
Memphis is 7-10 on the road but holds a 26.7% cover rate and a -5.0 opponent-adjusted point differential as visitors.
