NBA Betting Guide for Monday 10/31/22: Backing Two Teams With Better-Than-Expected Injury Splits
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. You can also track spread bet percentages at FanDuel Sportsbook.
Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's NBA odds?
Philadelphia 76ers at Washington Wizards
Philadelphia 76ers Moneyline (-158) - 4 stars
Philadelphia 76ers -3.5 (-110) - 2 stars
So that I don't bury the lede, Joel Embiid is questionable for tonight's game. With Embiid off the floor this season, the Sixers still have a +8.1 net rating when excluding low-leverage possessions, and that's very appealing.
This line is trending down after the 76ers opened up as 5.0-point road favorites. Despite the dip, we're seeing 82% of spread money come in on the Sixers, and numberFire's model is enjoying the shift in the spread.
Philadelphia is considered 73.2% likely to pick up the win, via numberFire, which makes their moneyline (-158) a four-star suggestion. My model has it a bit closer at a 63.6% win rate when I assume that Embiid is out.
The Sixers have played, on average, 4.6 points below their implied team total, but the Washington Wizards are a -2.6 there, too. And while the 76ers have a bigger deviation in that category, they have gone over their own implied total in four of seven games (57.1%). Washington's done it in two of six games (33.3%).
My opponent-adjusted point differential metric has the Sixers at a +3.9 for the season (better than their actual rate of +1.6) and the Wizards at just a -7.6 (despite a raw point differential of -1.3).
Sacramento Kings at Charlotte Hornets
Charlotte Hornets Moneyline (+126) - 5 stars
Charlotte Hornets +3.0 (-110) - 5 stars
Okay, so the Hornets are still without LaMelo Ball, and they list both Terry Rozier and Cody Martin as doubtful.
The Sacramento Kings are without super relevant injuries.
So what gives?
Well, the Hornets actually have a +1.4 net rating without Rozier and Martin on the floor this season if we remove garbage-time possessions. That's on the back of a promising 54.0% shot quality rating (i.e. expected effective field goal percentage [eFG%]) and an actual eFG% of 51.3%.
They're getting a bit lucky defensively (53.0% shot quality allowed and a 50.6% eFG% faced), but they're still outperforming opponents to the point that we can view them as about an average-at-worst team even in this split.
The Kings, though, are a -9.3 to start the season. That's with overperforming their shot quality (56.5% eFG% on a 52.0% shot quality rating, virtually identical to their defensive splits).
The point here is that both teams are pretty close even if we bake in regression for the Kings back toward the NBA average.
The Hornets shouldn't be underdogs at home, yet the line is climbing (from 1.5 to 3.0).
