NBA Betting Guide for Wednesday 2/16/22: Is Golden State a Lock to Win and 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 odds.)
Atlanta Hawks at Orlando Magic
We have three prior matchups to dig into for the Atlanta Hawks and Orlando Magic from the regular season so far.
Though Atlanta is 2-1 in the series, the Magic won 104-98 in the most recent meeting. That game featured 19 inactive players.
In the other two meetings, the Hawks won by 18 and 12.
Orlando is 4-6 in their past 10 and is 5-4-1 against the spread in that sample. They have gone over their own implied team total by an average of 5.8 points and did so in 9 of 10 matchups. They're playing above expectation right now.
Our model sees that continuing. It rates Orlando +6.0 as a two-star play and views the Magic as 58.6% likely to cover (my model has them at 59.4%).
Sacramento Kings at Chicago Bulls
Even with the Chicago Bulls' injuries, our algorithm really likes their chances tonight.
Chicago is rating out as 84.5% likely to beat the Sacramento Kings. Their moneyline (-210) is a full five-star play.
The expected point differential is 11.1 points, via the algorithm, dominating the actual spread of 5.0.
That differential makes the Bulls -5.0 a three-star suggestion. We saw the spread open at 5.5 in favor of Chicago. It then climbed to 6.0 but has since fallen to 5.0, likely indicating some backing of the Kings, which is probably explainable given small-sample results so far.
The Kings are 2-1 with Domantas Sabonis with a non-garbage net rating of +1.7. This, though, comes with better shooting efficiency than expected.
Denver Nuggets at Golden State Warriors
The Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors will square up three times between tonight and March 10th even with the All-Star break upcoming, so we'll see this matchup plenty over the next month.
That has meant, however, that there has been just one prior meeting to date between the two sides. The Nuggets won that game at the Chase Center by a score of 89-86 back in late December.
Tonight, Golden State is a 5.5-point home favorite with a -225 moneyline: two bets our model likes.
Golden State's moneyline is getting a two-star suggestion; the odds imply a 69.2% win chance, and our algorithm gives Golden State a 72.4% win rate. Accounting for the high probability of success, it's a solid bet.
There's also a one-star lean on the Warriors to cover the spread.
In games with Nikola Jokic but without Monte Morris on the floor, the Nuggets have a -3.2 net rating in medium-to-very-high-leverage situations. The Warriors with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson (and, naturally, without Draymond Green), have a +6.0 net rating.
