NBA

NBA Betting Guide for Wednesday 2/8/23: Sifting Through a Lot of Large Spreads

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.)

Indiana Pacers at Miami Heat

Miami Heat Moneyline (-260)
Miami Heat -6.5 (-110)

The Indiana Pacers have dropped nine consecutive road matchups by an average of 12.0 points. They've covered in just one of those nine games and have underperformed the spread by an average of 6.9 points per game in that split, too. Their opponent-adjusted defensive rating in that sample is a sky-high 124.0 while their offensive rating in these road games is only 112.3.

Overall, they're just 8-18 in road games with a 42.3% cover rate, and their issues aren't just on the road lately, as they have lost 8 of 13 games overall since the start of 2023, and in that span, they hold the fourth-worst net rating (-6.2) in the NBA.

The Heat are a strong team in Miami (17-9 at home despite just a 29-25 record overall). By possessions per game, they are the slowest team (95.8) at home this year, which is why I prefer the moneyline to the spread. Scoring could be at a premium.

numberFire's model likes the Miami moneyline as a two-star play and their spread as a one-star suggestion.

Sacramento Kings at Houston Rockets

Sacramento Kings Moneyline (-360)
Sacramento Kings -8.0 (-110)

I liked the Kings to win and cover against the Houston Rockets on Monday despite some road trip woes, and they picked up a 20-point win over Houston in Houston. We can't just rinse and repeat and leave it at that, but the process, largely, is the same for the same matchup two days apart.

De'Aaron Fox did play 29 minutes in that game after his status was a bit uncertain, and the spread closed at 6.5.

The Rockets are without Kevin Porter Jr., and with him off the floor but with Jabari Smith and Jalen Green active, Houston still has a -12.0 net rating.

With Fox and Domantas Sabonis, the Kings are a +3.3.

My model has the spread in the double digits. numberFire's algorithm -- just like in the prior game discussed -- likes the moneyline as a two-unit play and the spread as a one-unit play.

Also, using numberFire's win probabilities as a baseline, a moneyline parlay for the Heat (-260) and Kings (-360) should be -170 but is bettable at -130 on FanDuel Sportsbook. (You could also throw in the Cleveland Cavaliers [-820] into the mix for expected odds of -128 but actual odds of -102.)

Golden State Warriors at Portland Trail Blazers

Portland Trail Blazers Moneyline (-138)
Portland Trail Blazers -2.5 (-110)

The Golden State Warriors largely go as Stephen Curry goes, and he's out for multiple weeks. The team's net net rating with him versus without him is +10.2. A lot of those possessions coincide with the absence of the other guys in the Big Four, of course, so let's look deeper.

On non-garbage-time possessions in games with Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andrew Wiggins active but Curry off the floor, the Warriors' net rating is -0.60.

The Blazers themselves have an injury to Jusuf Nurkic. But in games with Damian Lillard and Anfernee Simons and Nurkic off the floor, the Blazers are a +2.0.

This doesn't even yet account for the home/road factor (and we know Golden State is bad on the road this season). Overall, my model likes the Blazers by 4.1. numberFire's model likes just the Portland moneyline (-138) as a one-star play. But they're rightly favored in this game.