NBA Betting Guide for Tuesday 4/5/22: Sifting Through a Full Slate

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.)

Houston Rockets at Brooklyn Nets

Houston Rockets Spread (+17.0) - 4 stars
Under (244.5) - 2 stars

The spread here is one of the biggest we've seen all season.

The Phoenix Suns were favored by 17.0 against the Orlando Magic on February 12th, and the Utah Jazz were favored by 19.5 against the Portland Trail Blazers on March 9th.

Both home teams actually covered.

Despite that, the 31 home teams since 2018 favored by 16 to 19 points covered in just 41.9% of their games. Road teams covered by an average of 1.6 points.

numberFire's model is honing in on the Rockets to keep this one somewhat competitive and avoid a total blowout.

In their past six games (with both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving), the Brooklyn Nets are just 2-4 with a 1-5 record against the spread while going over their own implied team total in just one of the six and allowing opponents to go over theirs in five of six.

The Rockets are 6-3-1 in their past 10 against the spread, covering by an average of 4.6 points.

The under is also getting signals from our model.

Houston unders are 6-4 in their past 10 games, and notably, opponents are 3-7 in going over their implied total against Houston in that span. We already mentioned Brooklyn's struggles to clear their lofty totals in recent games, so that aligns.

Milwaukee Bucks at Chicago Bulls

Over (233.5) - 3 stars
Chicago Bulls Spread (+5.0) - 2 stars
Chicago Bulls Moneyline (+184) - 2 stars

The top play in this game is on the over (233.5), which is getting a three-unit-level of confidence from our model here at numberFire. The projected point total (120.8 for the Milwaukee Bucks and 119.6 for the Bulls) works out to 240.4 points.

This matchup has been extremely under-friendly this season (212.7 points per game with a max of 230), yet recent trends do point to the over.

Over each team's last 10 games, they're allowing over the NBA average in points per game. It's 120.8 for the Bucks (106.0% of the NBA average) and 115.9 for the Bulls (101.7% of the NBA average).

The model also likes the Bulls' chances to keep it close and even win.

Chicago is rating out as 59.0% likely to cover the spread, leading to an expected return of 12.6%. Their 45.5% win probability leads to a 27.4% expected return.

My model anticipated a spread of just 3.0 points, as well.

New Orleans Pelicans at Sacramento Kings

Over (225.5) - 3 stars
Sacramento Kings Spread (+7.5) - 4 stars

The New Orleans Pelicans cling to a 19.4% chance to make the playoffs with their 34-44 record, according to numberFire's algorithm.

The Kings are eliminated, of course.

But the model here still likes them to cover a 7.5-point spread as the home team.

I know it's a weird split, but 87 home teams since 2016 who were underdogs of 7 to 8 points in games as late in the season as March have a 53.6% cover rate and cover by an average of 2.2 points.

In April alone, the sample goes down to 25 games, but those home underdogs have covered 56.0% of the time by an average of 2.6 points.

The better play is probably just sticking to the over (225.5). Since the break, Sacramento's home games have a 62.5% over rate.