NBA Betting Guide for Wednesday 2/9/22: Can the Jazz Finally Stop the Warriors?
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 odds.)
Chicago Bulls at Charlotte Hornets
The Chicago Bulls and Charlotte Hornets have met once before this season, but that was way back in late November.
The Bulls won at home by a score of 133-119 while the teams split the four factors between them.
Tonight, the Hornets are 2.0-point home underdogs with a +110 moneyline.
numberFire's algorithm likes both of those as one-star leans, which would require the Hornets to right the ship amidst a five-game losing streak.
Why expect them to turn it around after averaging just 97.0 points per game in their past five? Well, they're fifth in the NBA in that span in shot quality (54.0%) but have a -- by far -- league-worst effective field goal percentage (44.9%) in that sample.
They can't stay this cold forever, and that puts value on them to cover at home.
Toronto Raptors at Oklahoma City Thunder
The Toronto Raptors enter this one with a six-game winning streak.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have lost two in a row after a nice three-game winning streak of their own.
Over those past five games for OKC, they have a +0.8 point differential. Adjusting for spread, they're at a +9.4, which ranks them third over each team's past five games. They've covered in four of the five.
That's been a key for the Thunder all year: they have an NBA-best cover rate (66.7%). Yes, that should fall back toward 50.0% over the long haul, but they've been underrated against the spread game after game.
numberFire's model rates the Thunder (+9.5) to cover as a three-star play out of five. They're expected to cover with a 61.0% probability, leading to an expected return of 16.4%.
Golden State Warriors at Utah Jazz
In the game of the night, the Utah Jazz are 1.5-point home favorites against the Golden State Warriors. Utah's moneyline odds are -120.
numberFire's model like them to win with a 62.7% probability, leading to a two-unit suggestion on their moneyline. The spread is a one-star play.
Utah is 0-2 against Golden State so far this season with losses in January of 7 and 2 points. Utah's two-point loss came without Donovan Mitchell; in fairness, one of Golden State's two wins came without Klay Thompson, and both were without Draymond Green.
Both are out tonight. Rudy Gobert and Joe Ingles are also out.
Adjusting for injuries, home-court, and recent play, my model anticipated the spread as Utah -2.5 with a moneyline expectation of -135, so that's where the lean is with my model, as well as with numberFire's.
