NBA

NBA Betting Guide for Friday 12/2/22: Can the Cavaliers and Suns Cover as Double-Digit Favorites?

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? (All offensive rating, defensive rating, and net rating splits come from PBPStats.com and account for medium-, high-, and very high-leverage situations unless otherwise noted.)

Orlando Magic at Cleveland Cavaliers

Cleveland Cavaliers -10.5 (-105)
Under 216.5 (-110)

The Orlando Magic are all sorts of injured and list -- among others -- Jalen Suggs, Wendell Carter Jr., and Gary Harris as out plus Mohamed Bamba as questionable.

The Cavaliers are thin in the frontcourt with Jarrett Allen out and Kevin Love doubtful.

Cleveland is still a solid team without those guys on the floor so long as Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland are active.

Their relevant net rating for tonight's game is +3.1. Orlando, without those players listed as out, has a net rating of -10.6.

The spread is huge here, yes, but Cleveland is at home, where they are 9-1 with an 8-1-1 record against the spread.

The two defenses are about league average with all of these injury adjustments, yet the Magic's offense is putrid (101.8). My model thinks this game scores a total of 210.5 -- and that's with regressing the Magic's small sample (327 possessions) a bit toward the NBA average.

numberFire's model likes the under as a three-star play and the Cavs to cover as a one-star play.

New Orleans Pelicans at San Antonio Spurs

Under 233.0 (-110)

Zion Williamson gets more national attention than Brandon Ingram, but Ingram makes a bigger on-court impact, and that matters for the betting data.

Their offensive rating in games with Zion and C.J. McCollum but without Ingram and Herbert Jones is only 102.5 -- and that's over 394 non-garbage-time possessions. That's a pretty real issue over such a big sample.

For the San Antonio Spurs, well, they're the Spurs -- sans Jakob Poeltl and Jeremy Sochan. I have their relevant net rating for this game at -9.5 -- albeit with a 111.1 offensive rating. That means the defensive rating is 119.6.

Despite that, the offensive concerns for the Pelicans suggest a total -- for me -- closer to 227.0 rather than 233.0.

Houston Rockets at Phoenix Suns

Over 229.0 (-110)
Phoenix Suns -12.0 (-110)

Without Chris Paul but in games with Devin Booker, the Suns are 8-3 with a +8.2 net rating and a 121.1 offensive rating. That's very impressive, and I'm not sure it's reflected in their odds -- even as a 12.0-point favorite.

The Houston Rockets are pretty healthy -- not that it means too much. They're 5-16 on the season and 2-11 on the road. In away games, their opponent-adjusted point differential is -7.7.

My model has the total at 236.0, thus the over recommendation.

It also views the Suns as 16.5-point favorites. numberFire's model views the expected point gap as 16.1.