NBA Betting Guide for Friday 3/11/22: Which Game Does Our Algorithm Love?
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.)
Charlotte Hornets at New Orleans Pelicans
Though the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans have some shared franchise history, this is the first time this season that they are meeting.
They'll play again in 10 days.
Tonight, the 27-39 Pelicans are 3.0-point home underdogs to the 32-35 Hornets. That's a bet our model really likes on an otherwise iffy night of betting value.
Pelicans +3.0 is a three-unit recommendation and is rating out as 63.9% likely. That, then, is tied to an expected return of 22.0%.
It's not just the Pelicans' spread that the model likes -- it's also into the Pelicans' moneyline (+128). Our model rates New Orleans as 59.5% likely to get the win, besting their implied moneyline odds (43.9%) easily.
Over their past 10 games, Charlotte is just 3-7 with a point differential of -0.8 and an opponent-adjusted differential of -2.9.
The Pelicans are 5-5 in their past 10 despite a +8.3 point differential and a stellar +7.1 opponent-adjusted point differential.
Dallas Mavericks at Houston Rockets
In this square dance between Texas squads, the 40-26 Dallas Mavericks are 10.5-point favorites over the 17-49 Houston Rockets.
In their season series, the Mavs are 2-0 with wins of 10 and 24 points thus far.
Our algorithm, though, is liking the Rockets to keep this game close. It rates Houston +10.5 as a two-star play.
In their past 10 games, Houston has actually played +3.5 points, on average, better than the spread suggestion with a 50.0% cover rate.
Dallas, despite their 7-3 record in that time, has an adjusted point differential of -0.1 with a raw differential of +0.7.
Dallas' slow pace is also very under-friendly (they have a league-low 37.5% over rate). Our model has a one-star lean on the under (225.5).
Utah Jazz at San Antonio Spurs
Let's stick in Texas for this final game.
The Utah Jazz are favored by 6.0 on the road over the San Antonio Spurs. Our model is anticipating a point gap of 3.5 points instead of 6.0, leading to a spread bet recommendation for the Spurs.
San Antonio remains a strange home team. They're 12-20 at home despite a point differential of +0.3 and an adjusted point differential of -1.0.
The Jazz have traveled pretty well. They're 18-14 on the road with a +5.8 spread-adjusted differential but with a 46.9% cover rate while struggling a bit offensively.
In these 32 road games, Utah has surpassed its implied team total at a 43.8% clip with an average return of 3.4 points shy of their implied total. Both are bottom-two rates in the NBA.
