NBA Betting Guide for Wednesday 1/12/22: Can the Spurs Get Back on Track?
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 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 odds.)
Boston Celtics at Indiana Pacers
This is a rematch of a game that took place on Monday in Boston, a game during which the Boston Celtics won 101-98 in overtime over the Indiana Pacers, who are now the home side.
In that game, neither team shot well (they each had shot quality ratings of 47.0%, and neither surpassed a 44.3% effective field goal percentage). The Celtics edged out the Pacers 53-47 in the rebounding column, yet nothing in the data suggested a huge edge for either side.
That makes it easy to like the model's suggestion, which is to take the Pacers +3.0. They now have home-court advantage, and they're listed as 63.3% likely to cover the spread, leading to an expected return of 20.9%, per our model.
Boston is 7-13 on the road with a point differential of +0.4; Indiana is 12-10 at home with a +3.5 point differential.
Our model also likes the Pacers' moneyline (+126), rating it -- along with the Pacers +3.0 -- as a three-star suggestion.
Orlando Magic at Washington Wizards
Our model isn't recommending any picks on the spread (Washington Wizards -6.0) or moneyline (Wizards -225 and Orlando Magic +210) but is keying in on the over (215.5).
The algorithm here rates the over as a three-star suggestion (implying we should feel good with a three-unit wager -- whatever that means for us and our individual bankrolls).
Overall this season, Wizards games have gone over at a 52.5% rate, and over their past 10 games, the over is 7-3. They've gone over their own implied total by an average of 5.3 points in that sample.
The Magic have gone over their implied total in 7 of their past 10 games, as well, by an average of 5.2 points.
Our model likes the over to hit at a 66.7% rate, leading to an expected return of 27.4%.
Houston Rockets at San Antonio Spurs
We've had a spread recommendation and an over/under recommendation, so let's now get into a moneyline option.
That's the San Antonio Spurs (-255).
Our model gives San Antonio a 79.6% chance to pick up the win and get to 16-25 on the season. That makes their moneyline a three-star play. Yes, there's some heavy juice there, but a near-80% probability can help offset that. The expected return is 12.1%.
The Spurs are only 3-7 in their past 10 games with a point differential of -1.6 but a spread-adjusted point differential of +2.0, so they haven't been as bad as their recent record implies.
The Houston Rockets are 1-9 in their past 10 with a league-worst -14.7 point differential, a number that improves to -7.4 after adjusting for spread (ranking them 29th in the NBA).
If you're balking at -255 odds for the Spurs outright, our model also recommends a one-star lean on the Spurs' spread (-6.0).
