NBA Betting Guide for Wednesday 11/10/21: The Warriors Are Primed to Cover Tonight
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.
Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's games? (All odds from NBA Finals odds.)
Detroit Pistons at Houston Rockets
The Detroit Pistons and Houston Rockets have combined for a 2-17 record this season, which is not particularly great, but one of them is going to get a second win tonight. So, that's something.
For the money (i.e. the moneyline), numberFire's model prefers it to be the road Pistons, whose moneyline odds are +134.
Overall, the model sees this as a coinflip that sides slightly with the Pistons (50.6% likely to win). That makes their moneyline a two-star recommendation with an expected return on investment of 17.4%.
Of course, we can also target their spread (+3.5), which is 61.5% likely. That leads to an expected return of 17.5%.
This is all in spite of the fact that the Pistons do own the worst point differential (-12.3) in the NBA. The Rockets are at a lowly -7.4 themselves.
According to the 25 most comparable games to this one in our database, teams representing the Pistons won 56.0% of them outright and covered in just as many.
Milwaukee Bucks at New York Knicks
The Milwaukee Bucks' absences are pretty significant: Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, and Donte DiVincenzo.
Using relevant data for the team, then, they've got a +1.6 net rating across 329 minutes with Giannis playing but without those three. That's honestly not too bad, but it's not enough for us to prefer them to the Knicks tonight.
The New York Knicks enter this game with a 7-4 record plus a home-court and day-of-rest advantage. Since 2016, home favorites have won 72.8% of games against opponents with no rest, and they covered in 51.0% of those games.
It's the moneyline (Knicks -166) that is getting the nod here. numberFire's model views New York as 63.0% likely to get the win, putting their moneyline into one-star territory.
My model sees the Knicks getting the win at a 65.0% rate, so even a tick higher than numberFire's expectation.
Minnesota Timberwolves at Golden State Warriors
This is my favorite game of the night on what is actually kind of a tight night for overall value in spite of the sheer volume of games.
But I'm going big on the Golden State Warriors' spread (-7.5) and moneyline (-320) against the Minnesota Timberwolves. numberFire's model rates those as three-star and five-star recommendations, respectively.
The Warriors hold the NBA's top point differential (+13.7) and are second in spread-adjusted point differential (+7.5). The 3-6 Timberwolves are at a -4.1 and a -5.7, respectively. Their spread-adjusted point differential is the worst in the NBA.
In total, numberFire's algorithm sees the Warriors as 87.3% likely to pick up the win. The moneyline will take a big wager to pay off, but the five-star rating comes from the confidence level in their win chances.
Though my model is a little lower at 78.8%, that still suggests a moneyline of -372.
Golden State, via numberFire's algorithm, is also 65.8% likely to cover the spread, leading to an expected return of 25.6%.
