NBA

NBA Betting Guide for Wednesday 3/9/22: 3 Games That Should Go Under

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. You can also track spread bet percentages at NBA odds.

Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's games? (All odds from NBA odds.)

Toronto Raptors at San Antonio Spurs

Back on January 4th, the Toronto Raptors dismantled the San Antonio Spurs 129-104 in Toronto.

They swept the four factors and were up 15 by halftime due to a dominant second quarter.

Tonight, though, the spread is just 2.0 points in Toronto's favor on the road in San Antonio while Fred VanVleet remains questionable.

The model here at numberFire likes the Spurs as the slight favorite (53.8%). That, of course, means the algorithm likes their spread (+1.5) and does so as a two-unit recommendation. Spurs +2.0 is 56.5% likely to hit.

Their win odds also make their moneyline (+108) a two-star suggestion, as well.

Toronto, in their past five without VanVleet, is 1-4 against the spread. The Spurs at home this season are only 12-18 but have a positive point differential (+0.8).

There's a one-star lean on the under (230.0), too.

New York Knicks at Dallas Mavericks

The New York Knicks throttled the Dallas Mavericks at home by a score of 108-85 on January 12th while dominating the glass (54 to 39) and the three-point arc (44.4% to 21.6%).

Tonight, Dallas is an 8.5-point favorite at home against the reeling Knicks (3-7 in their past 10 despite a current two-game winning streak).

The Mavericks, in their past 10 games, are 8-2 with a point differential of +4.4.

Overall, our model likes the Knicks to keep it closer than the spread suggests and ultimately views the point differential between these two squads as 6.4 points.

However, the preferred play is actually on the total (215.5). The under to be specific (imagine if I wasn't).

The Mavericks have the lowest over rate (38.1%) in the NBA and have surpassed their own implied team total in 43.1% of their games (50.9% is the NBA average). The Knicks are barely above that rate at 51.6%.

Our algorithm rates the under as a three-star wager.

Denver Nuggets at Sacramento Kings

This is another game with a modest amount of algorithm interest on the spread (Denver Nuggets -5.0) and moneyline (Nuggets -205) but a preference on the total (240.0).

Our model rates the under as a three-star play tonight and views it as 62.4% likely to stay shy of 240.0 points, leaving us an expected return of 19.2% on our bets.

numberFire's algorithm likes this game to total 233.2 points; my model has the total at 233.7.

Looking at the 25 most similar games to this one in NBA history in our database, those matchups are an astounding 23-2 on the under.

Notably, too, teams representing the Nuggets are 17-8 outright and 15-9-1 against the spread.