NBA Betting Guide for Tuesday 5/9/23: Which Teams Will Take Control in Game 5?
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.)
Philadelphia 76ers at Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics Moneyline (-295)
The Boston Celtics' fourth-quarter comeback in Game 4 was not enough to fend off the fiery Philadelphia 76ers on the road, though the underlying data from that matchup suggested a Celtics win was very close.
By using the four factors, we can do a pretty good job of estimating expected points, and based on that, the Celtics should've won that game 116-112 rather than losing it 116-115. Teams with an estimated point differential of 4.0 have won 86.2% of games this season.
From a top-down standpoint, the series is actually pretty close save for the Celtics' superior shooting. Here's a series snapshot, via Basketball-Reference.
| Four Factors |
Pace | eFG% | TOV% | ORB% | FT/FGA | ORtg | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BOS (2-2) | 89.8 | .581 | 10.5 | 24.1 | .206 | 126.2 | 116.3 |
| PHI (2-2) | 89.8 | .519 | 9.0 | 20.6 | .220 | 115.0 | 106.0 |
The clear difference here is with the effective field goal percentage (eFG%). Boston's 58.1% eFG% leads all eight teams in the semi-finals by a full 3.8 percentage points. The 76ers rank sixth out of the eight teams remaining in eFG%. Boston also easily leads this round in offensive rating.
The series is very close to being a 3-1 lead for Boston, and they're -295 to win this game and go up 3-2 in the series.
Since 2016 and excluding the bubble year, home teams entering Game 5 tied 2-2 have won 72.5% of the time and have a 57.5% cover rate. When looking only at home teams tied 2-2 that are favored entering Game 5, those squads have won 75.0% of the time and covered at a 58.3% rate.
Phoenix Suns at Denver Nuggets
Under 228.0 (-110)
Those same trends would naturally apply to the Denver Nuggets, who are -205 moneyline favorites over the Phoenix Suns back in Denver.
However, this is, based on my numbers and numberFire's numbers, a pretty accurate spread at -5.5 in Denver's favor, so it's hard to like either side outright.
While it's technically true that the Nuggets are sweeping the four factors, it's pretty close throughout.
| Four Factors | Pace | eFG% | TOV% | ORB% | FT/FGA | ORtg | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DEN (2-2) | 95.3 | .543 | 8.9 | 28.7 | .182 | 120.6 | 115.0 |
| PHO (2-2) | 95.3 | .542 | 10.9 | 23.2 | .166 | 116.5 | 111.0 |
Combined, these teams have averaged 226.0 points per game on the strength of great offensive ratings. They're both top-three in offensive rating in this round, trailing just the Celtics. The underlying data via the four factors suggests these teams should be averaging a combined 223.0 points per game in the series.
Pace-wise, this series is solid but not necessarily blazing fast by any means, and two offensive ratings over 132.0 in Game 4 has the total for this game set at 228.0.
For that reason, the under looks promising, and numberFire's model likes it as a four-star play.
