NBA Betting Guide for Wednesday 5/17/23: Should We Trust the Celtics to Cover a Lofty Spread?
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.)
Miami Heat at Boston Celtics
Miami Heat +8.0 (-108) - Lean
As numberFire's model would indicate, today's line is pretty efficient. It's finding just a smidge of value on the Celtics' moneyline (-370).
It's largely because this Heat team is a difficult handicap. They continue to have a limited ceiling in terms of offensive rebounding (26.6% in the playoffs), but against two solid teams in Milwaukee and New York, they were efficient, got to the free-throw line, and didn't turn the ball over:
| Team | eFG% | FTA/FG | TOV% | oREB% | Net Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MIA | 54.5% | 0.255 | 12.6% | 26.6% | 4.4 |
| BOS | 57.6% | 0.218 | 12.3% | 25.3% | 7.1 |
Personally, it feels like we're here again with this underwhelming Heat squad. Surely there's no way the eighth seed competes in this one, right? Well, these four factors are as close as they feel. In fact, Miami leads three of the four categories, including the offensive rebounding issue they overcame significantly against the top-ranked Knicks. After they toppled the Bucks, how could we rule them out?
Boston delivered a haymaker on Sunday to Philadelphia, but they're 7-8 straight up (SU) and 7-8 against the spread (ATS) at home in their last 15 playoff games. On paper, these teams seem close, which offers plenty of value in taking a boatload of points.
My lone reservation? 68% of tickets and 59% of the handle at FanDuel Sportsbook are buying Jimmy Butler keeping this one close. As a result, there's not a ton of value in the number, but I believe this is the right side.
Over 211.0 (-110) - Lean
This is another situation where the betting line doesn't match the side I'd want to back.
Surprisingly, these are two over-heavy teams in the playoffs thus far. The Celtics are 8-5 to the over in 13 games, and the Heat are 7-3-1 to the over in their last 11. With the eFG%s mentioned in regard to the spread, that's no surprise.
You almost never see this, but Miami's pace in the playoffs (97.0) has actually been higher than their mark in the regular season (96.8). As for the C's, their defensive rating in the regular season (109.6) was actually better than their current one in the playoffs (111.0). That's what likely led to the influx of overs.
Realistically, I'd hope to get this number around 209.5. Receiving 71% of bets and 83% of the money has steamed it to here. I'm not particularly interested as it continues to move this way.
