NBA Betting Guide for Wednesday 3/30/22: 3 Over/Unders That Look Too Low
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.)
Sacramento Kings at Houston Rockets
Over (231.0) - 3 stars
I'm honing in on some totals for tonight's 11-game slate.
This matchup between the Sacramento Kings and Houston Rockets has a total of 231.0 points, and our model views that as too low.
The projected final score here is 120.1 to 119.4 in favor of the Kings, a total of 239.5 points.
That represents a 9.5-point jump in points per game for the Rockets over their past 10. Is that too high? Maybe not: the Kings are letting up 120.4 points per game over their past 10. That's 106% of the NBA average.
Using my adjusted points data since the All-Star break, the expected total works out to 238.8 points.
Since the break, each side here has averaged at least 2.5 points per game over their own implied total, as well, and matched up against one another, we should see some points here.
Memphis Grizzlies at San Antonio Spurs
Over (234.0) - 3 stars
San Antonio Spurs Spread (+5.5) - 1 star
Another over is getting three-star treatment in this matchup between the Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs.
Our model here views the over as 63.2% likely to hit, and the expected total here is 241.1 points. The expected return, then, is 20.6%.
Since the break, both the Grizzlies (121.4) and Spurs (117.4) are above the NBA average (113.7) in points per game pretty comfortably.
Without Ja Morant (out), the Grizzlies still have a non-garbage offensive rating of 115.8.
Since 2017, games with a home underdog between 5.0 and 6.0 points have a 52.0% over rate by an average of 1.6 points, and in the past two seasons, those numbers are 60.0% and 2.9, respectively.
Phoenix Suns at Golden State Warriors
Over (221.5) - 3 stars
Golden State Warriors Spread (+4.5) - 3 stars
Even without Stephen Curry, the Warriors are still getting some spread love from our model here, but I'm just interested in the total (221.5).
Their net rating is -3.8 without him on the season in non-garbage situations, and when adding in games in which Klay Thompson and Draymond Green played, it actually falls to -9.3 over 238 minutes.
Weird. (It has to do with some unlucky defensive splits, but that's for a different time; I'm focused on the total.)
The projected total here is 227.5 points based on numberFire's model.
In games with Chris Paul and Devin Booker, the Phoenix Suns have a dominant net rating of 11.6 and offensive rating of 118.1, and using those relevant splits I pointed out, my model is leaning toward the over (anticipating a score of 223.4).
