NBA

NBA Betting Guide for Friday 1/27/23: Can We Trust the Cavaliers on a Back-to-Back?

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. All injury news and notes come from the official NBA injury report unless otherwise noted.)

Milwaukee Bucks at Indiana Pacers

Under 239.5 (-110)

The injury list for this matchup is quite long, and it includes a handful of questionable tags.

The Indiana Pacers are without Tyrese Haliburton while all of Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, and Myles Turner are questionable. The Milwaukee Bucks' list is a lot more straightforward, and Giannis Antetokounmpo is probable.

Regardless of who plays on the Pacers' side, this game's total looks too high. The Pacers have a relevant offensive rating below 110.0 either way because of the key absence of Haliburton himself.

Notably, the Bucks surpass their own implied team total only 41.3% of the time, and the Pacers allow opponents to clear theirs just 36.0% of the time.

numberFire's model has the under as a four-star play (i.e. four-unit wager). My model projects the total at 229.7.

Cleveland Cavaliers at Oklahoma City Thunder

Cleveland Cavaliers +1.0 (-112)

The Oklahoma City Thunder are thin in terms of depth but are fine up top with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey ready to rock.

The Cavaliers don't have an official injury report out early in the day after playing last night (a 113-95 win over the Houston Rockets). Donovan Mitchell didn't play in that game after he played on Tuesday (38.3 minutes, mind you).

The team's splits are obviously great with Mitchell, but even if he were to miss, the data would imply the Cavaliers are slight favorites.

In games with Darius Garland but Mitchell and Kevin Love off the floor, the Cavaliers (385 minutes and 752 possessions) have a +13.2 net rating.

That should scale back eventually, sure, but getting a point here is quite nice.