NBA Betting Guide for Thursday 5/18/23: Can Denver's Electric Shooting Be Stopped?
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, defensive, 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.)
Los Angeles Lakers at Denver Nuggets
Los Angeles Lakers ML (+172) - Lean
With the Lakers being one of the most effort-driven squads in the NBA, I don't have complete confidence that they will show up tonight, but if they do, I think they'll win outright.
You can see the effort disparity between halves. In the first half, when the Nuggets came out firing on all cylinders, Denver had a 51.9% offensive rebounding rate, 19 transition possessions, and got 16 second-chance points -- in one half. That led to a +18 point differential.
The Lakers won the second half by 12, limiting Denver to an 11.8% offensive rebounding rate, five transition possessions, and just two second-chance points. That's not a schematic adjustment; it's guys hustling.
Now, L.A. did also stumble on a crucial adjustment. Rui Hachimura likely starts in place of a guard after playing 28 minutes and closing Game 1 with primary duties checking Nikola Jokic. Jokic was limited to two points and no offensive boards in the fourth quarter, and L.A. had a 100.3 defensive rating with Rui on the floor.
In time, the Nuggets should have a better answer for that defensive coverage, but on the other end, the Lakers got 25 shots at the rim and made 20 of them. Denver's regular season defensive rating (113.5) was a concern entering the playoffs, and it's getting worse as they progress.
Some of the Nuggets' shooting splits from Game 1 aren't sustainable long-term on that shot diet, but L.A. can keep making 80% of shots at the rim if they're getting so many.
Under 226.5 (-108)
As I said, I don't fully trust the Lakers to fire a full-unit bet on them, but I do trust that these shooting splits will dissipate.
If it felt like the Nuggets had an uncanny shooting display where seemingly every tough shot went down, you'd be correct:
| Nuggets' Shooting (by Shot Defense Distance) | Game 1 eFG% | Playoffs eFG% | Regular Season eFG% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tight Defense (2-4 ft.) | 64.4% | 58.4% | 56.1% |
| Open Defense (4-6 ft.) | 76.1% | 56.8% | 57.3% |
| Wide Open Defense (6+ ft.) | 56.3% | 55.3% | 61.2% |
Against normalized historical trends in a playoff game, the Nuggets posted an eFG% of 64.4% against well-covered shots. Denver was a top-five team in the regular season in that stat (56.1%) -- but this spike against a Lakers squad with a 108.8 defensive rating this postseason? It truly was meant to be in Game 1.
Especially as fatigue plays a role, these numbers should drop -- even with room for growth in the wide-open-shot department. The issue? The Lakers allowed just 16 wide-open shots -- 8 in each half.
I mentioned on Tuesday that the Lakers' defense and pace would generally trend toward totals under 220 points, but both teams shot incredibly well in Game 1. Denver did so while being properly defended, so I'm expecting significant regression on that side to send this total under.
