NBA Betting Guide for Tuesday 4/11/23: Will Scoring Be Down for the First Play-In 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. You can also track spread bet percentages at FanDuel Sportsbook.

Where can we 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. All injury news and notes come from the official NBA injury report unless otherwise noted.)

Atlanta Hawks at Miami Heat

Atlanta Hawks +5.0 (-110)
Under 228.0 (-110)

The winner of this 7-versus-8 matchup will play the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs, and a loss means a move to a final-chance situation against the winner of the 9-versus-10 game in the Eastern Conference between the Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors.

Largely, both sides are healthy for tonight's matchup.

The Miami Heat won the regular season matchup 3-1, but all games were within eight points.

For as average as the Hawks have been on the full season, they've been a bit better than average (30-25) in games with Trae Young, Dejounte Murray, and Clint Capela all active. Their opponent-adjusted point differential in this split is +0.8.

Miami, with Jimmy Butler active, is 35-29 with an adjusted point differential of +0.9.

Given a universally downward trend in pace in the playoffs and two similar teams, my model is liking the Hawks to cover.

The downtick in pace and the average offenses and defenses overall along with the Heat's super slow pace already makes the under look appealing, as well.

Minnesota Timberwolves at Los Angeles Lakers

Los Angeles Lakers Moneyline (-375)
Los Angeles Lakers -8.5 (-110)
Under 231.5 (-110)

The loser of this game gets the winner of the Oklahoma City Thunder and the New Orleans Pelicans matchup tomorrow. The winner faces the Memphis Grizzlies.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are in disarray after some on-court and off-court problems that are leading to the absence of Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels for tonight's game against the Lakers. The team also lists Karl-Anthony Towns as questionable.

Of note, the Lakers have the trio of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and D'Angelo Russell all listed as probable. With those three active, Los Angeles is 7-1 overall with a +12.1 point differential.

The spread is growing, which makes it a smidgeon tougher to back, though my model likes the Lakers by double-digits anyway, so I still see value there.

Both teams have better-than-average defenses, which play a part in pointing to another under from my model for Tuesday night's action.