NBA Betting Guide for Thursday 11/18/21: Our Model Loves the Spurs to Cover
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.)
Washington Wizards at Miami Heat
We know that the Miami Heat have been off to a hot start at 10-5, but the Washington Wizards are 10-4 in their own right, and that's despite playing three games without Bradley Beal.
In those games sans Beal, they're 3-0 with a net rating of +6.6 points and an offensive rating of 118.2, according to PBPStats.com. Beal is back, but it's impressive nonetheless.
The Heat, meanwhile, are playing on the second night of a back-to-back. It was a 113-98 win over the New Orleans Pelicans, but they played last night. That's the point.
But, hey, the Wizards played last night, too, and lost outright 97-87 to the Charlotte Hornets, so there are a lot of layers to this game.
The layering applies to the injuries, as well. Davis Bertans is out, and Spencer Dinwiddie is listed as day-to-day for the Wizards; Markieff Morris is out, and Bam Adebayo is day-to-day for the Heat.
Using relevant samples, then, my model views the spread as 4.5 rather than 7.0, and numberFire's model sees the Wizards +7.0 as a one-star betting opportunity.
San Antonio Spurs at Minnesota Timberwolves
numberFire's model absolutely loves this game, specifically the San Antonio Spurs' side of things.
They are 2.5-point road underdogs, yet numberFire's model likes them to win at a 64.0% clip. That makes their moneyline (+118) a four-star opportunity. That means the model thinks you should allocate four units to the bet.
The spread (+2.5) is also a four-star recommendation, per numberFire's algorithm.
While the Spurs are just 2-5 without Jakob Poeltl, who is listed as out, their net rating is only a -1.3 in those games.
While my model (48.7%) isn't as heavy as numberFire's on the Spurs' chances (64.0%) to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, it still sees them as 54.9% likely to cover the 2.5-point spread.
That's where the consensus lies tonight, and again, numberFire's algo is even higher on the Spurs to win outright.
Los Angeles Clippers at Memphis Grizzlies
The Los Angeles Clippers have a long injury list to deal with while the Memphis Grizzlies are relatively clean in that regard.
Despite the Clippers' status as 1.0-point road underdogs, numberFire's model likes them to win outright at a 57.2% clip. That makes their moneyline (-102) a two-star opportunity.
The expected return is 10.1% on the Clippers' moneyline.
The expected return is actually 13.3% on the Clippers to cover the spread, so we consider taking the spread here, as well.
In total, numberFire's model sees the median final score being 112.6 for the Clippers to 110.7 for the Grizz. That's a 1.9-point gap. My model sees the Clippers favored by 2.9, so it's even a tinge higher.
Interestingly, road teams with a day of rest facing home teams with two days of rest in games with a spread of 1.0 points or tighter have won 57.1% of games since 2016.
