NBA Betting Guide for Tuesday 6/29/21: The Data Likes the Hawks to Cover in Game 4

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 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.)

Milwaukee Bucks (-270) at Atlanta Hawks (+220)

Spread: Milwaukee Bucks -7.0
Total: 218.0

The Atlanta Hawks hung around for most of Game 3 until the Khris Middleton explosion happened, and they're now looking at two straight losses by 34 and 11 points, respectively, after picking up a 3-point win in Game 1 of this series.

Overall, then, the Hawks have put forth a net rating of -13.8 across these three games thus far. The Bucks have a sizable advantage in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.31 to 1.16), rebounding rate (53.5% to 46.5%), and effective field goal percentage (55.6% to 52.1%).

Despite all that, numberFire's model isn't giving up hope on the Hawks, assuming Trae Young plays. Atlanta is being viewed as 48.6% likely to win outright, according to our model, making their moneyline of +220 a three-star recommendation out of five. That's tied to a an expected return of 55.6%.

Naturally, the model loves the Hawks getting 7.0 points, too, and that's rated as a four-star bet. The Hawks are projected to cover the spread 66.9% of the time, good for an expected return of 27.8%.

The betting public is not on the same page, and although a majority of spread bets are on Atlanta (56%), just 21% of the money is, indicating smart money on the Bucks to post a decisive victory.

The moneyline isn't quite as close, either, and the Bucks are getting 71% of the bets and 85% of the money to win outright.

We also see conflicting trends on the over/under.

numberFire's model prefers the over, rating it as a four-star recommendation and has the game as 70.6% likely to reach 219 points or more. The betting public is siding with the under by way of 55% of the bets and 61% of the money.

This playoff series has averaged 5.0 points shy of the posted over/under, and the overall season series has been closer (-2.8). In total, four of six matchups stayed under, but the home side has covered three of six games.

Injecting recent, relevant data into my model also shows some value on the Hawks to cover, just like we see with numberFire's algorithm. They're around 64.7% likely to cover, in line with what numberFire's model likes. The over is also 70.8% likely to hit -- virtually the same as numberFire's expectations, as well.

Using data without Young, the spread still makes sense for the Hawks, but the under gets more love in this scenario.

In all, Atlanta +7.0 is the primary preference with an additional lean on the over, assuming Young plays.