NBA Betting Guide for Friday 4/14/23: It's Time to Win or Go Home
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 can we 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.)
Chicago Bulls at Miami Heat
Over 209.0 (-110)
Chicago Bulls +5.5 (-110)
After scoring 105 points in a play-in loss to the Atlanta Hawks, the Miami Heat host the Bulls, who put up just 109 in their play-in win against the Toronto Raptors.
It makes sense that a low total is projected for tonight's game, yet it's a bit too low even when accounting for scaled-down pace. Both offenses, based on current rotations, have above-average offenses with roughly average defenses.
They each have rest bumps, too.
Since the break, and excluding overtime games, these teams have an average point total of 223.3 for their games.
Additionally, the Bulls are 15-9 since the break with a point differential of +5.3 (3rd-best in the NBA), which is +5.1 once adjusted for opponents. Miami is 12-12 since the All-Star game with an adjusted point differential of -0.6.
numberFire's model likes the Bulls +5.5 as a three-star play.
Oklahoma City Thunder at Minnesota Timberwolves
Oklahoma City Thunder +5.5 (-110)
Each side in this game is .500 since the break (including the play-in games) with virtually even point differentials (+0.0 for the Thunder and -0.2 for the Minnesota Timberwolves).
Minnesota is, surprisingly, 2-6 in that split at home with a -5.3 point differential that smooths out to a still-worrisome -5.0 once adjusted for opponents. They're also 2-6 against the spread in that sample. They list both Karl-Anthony Towns an Rudy Gobert as questionable.
The Thunder are a respectable 6-8 on the road since the break and hold a narrow spread-adjusted differential of -1.0.
Accounting for health and rest, my model thinks this spread should be 4.6 points, so there's an angle on the underdog.
numberFire's model considers the Thunder +5.5 to be a two-star play out of five, as well.
