NBA Betting Guide for 1/26/21: Searching for Value in All 3 Games
Betting on the NBA can get a little overwhelming throughout the season because there are games virtually 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 our oddsFire section of the site allows you to track movement in those lines and see where the action is coming from on particular games.
Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's games? (All odds from NBA Finals odds.)
Los Angeles Clippers at Atlanta Hawks
This game is a wild one with all of the Los Angeles Clippers' injuries. There will be no Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, or Patrick Beverley. There have been just 90 minutes without those three on the court this season. The Clips have an abysmal offensive rating of 97.9 and a defensive rating of 106.8 (for a net rating of -8.9) in that sample. That's a massive reversal from their +8.4 estimated net rating overall this season.
The Atlanta Hawks aren't totally healthy, either, and Trae Young, Clint Capela, and Danilo Gallinari are questionable. With Young and Capela playing together, the Hawks are a +1.7 in net rating over 292 minutes, but they have a -16.6 net rating in 182 minutes without them. So, we'll have a hard time trusting the long-term data here in this particular matchup.
oddsFire shows sharp money on the Hawks' moneyline, as 45% of the bets but 64% of the money is on the Hawks to win outright. Assuming Young and Capela play, that's where we should lean.
Washington Wizards at Houston Rockets
Here's another game where the full-season data may not be the most relevant sample to use when projecting it out.
The Houston Rockets, of course, no longer have James Harden. Without Harden over 204 minutes, the Rockets have played fairly well with an offensive rating of 105.1 (which would rank roughly 20th) but a 103.7 defensive rating (which would rank roughly 3rd). That's a net rating of +1.4, actually better than the -2.6 with him. Read into that how you will; the point is that they're still fairly okay without Harden from a data perspective in a small sample equivalent to 4.25 games.
Where the action seems to be is on the over in this game. It has risen from 230.5 to 232.5 already, and there's a 15-percentage-point gap between the bets (48%) and money (63%) on the over. numberFire's algorithm is heavy on the over, as well, seeing it as 63.5% likely to occur. That's good for an expected return of 21.2%. We rate it as a three-star bet out of five.
New York Knicks at Utah Jazz
There isn't much value popping in this game at all if we look at numberFire's algorithm. The only star rating across the total, spread, and moneyline is on the over at 210.5, and that's just a one-star bet out of five.
The median projected score in this game is 111.6 to 100.0 in favor of the Utah Jazz, a total of 211.6. My model predicted an over/under of 210.8, so, yeah -- it's tight. The betting trends do also like the over: 80% of the tickets and 75% of the money is on the over.
That's really our best shot, though. numberFire projects the Jazz to win 85.3% of the time, an implied moneyline of -580. Their actual moneyline is -720. That suggests the break-even point is 87.8% in terms of win probability.
They're also projected to cover the 11.5-point spread just 47.9% of the time, so we should just stick with the over if we're dead set on getting action on the nightcap.
