NBA Betting Guide for Thursday 4/6/23: Which Teams Can We Trust?
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.)
Portland Trail Blazers at San Antonio Spurs
Over 228.0 (-110)
There just aren't many playoff implications across the board on tonight's six-game set, so we have to be open to scaling back the way we approach the slate.
These two teams have been really weak offensively since the All-Star break with each averaging fewer than 109.0 points per game in non-overtime contests. However, they've each allowed more than 120.7.
In total, Portland Trail Blazers games since the break (excluding overtime) have averaged 229.4 points, and that number for the San Antonio Spurs is 230.2.
Both teams offer bottom-five adjusted defenses since the break, and that makes for an over-friendly situation at a relatively neutral over/under in the context of the full season.
Oklahoma City Thunder at Utah Jazz
Oklahoma City Thunder Moneyline (-255)
Oklahoma City Thunder -6.0 (-114)
The Thunder still have motivation. numberFire's season simulations give them a 45.7% chance to be in the play-in. They're currently the 10 seed. They've clinched the tiebreaker against the Dallas Mavericks (the 11 seed), and they're up 2-1 in the season series on the Utah Jazz, who are 1.5 games back of the Thunder for the 10 seed.
Utah, however, is on the wrong side of the tiebreaker with the Mavericks, and that'll really block them from a miracle.
numberFire's simulations give Utah just a 0.2% chance to reach the play-in, and their injury list shows Jordan Clarkson, Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton, and more as out.
The point being: the Thunder have motivation here, and the data says they should be able to win and cover against a team that is effectively done.
My model has the Thunder expected to be favored by 8.4 points rather than 6.0, and a win here goes a long way toward slamming the door on Dallas.
Denver Nuggets at Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Suns Moneyline (-290)
Phoenix Suns -4.5 (First-Half) (-104)
The Denver Nuggets clinched the 1 seed in the Western Conference and are listing Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray as questionable for this game, so we can probably extrapolate from there.
As for the Suns, there is no injury report early in the day, and they're locked into the 4 seed. However, they do have reason to play starters, though it's more about getting some reps in with Kevin Durant. Durant has played 30-plus minutes in three straight games, and we could see them start the game, at least, with their core rotation.
That's why I have an interest in the first-half spread of -4.5. They're also bettable at -220 to win the first half.
With the assumption that Jokic and Murray sit, Denver becomes one of the worst teams in the NBA and is, therefore, a target even if the Suns scale it back themselves a bit.
My data projects the Suns to win by double-digits if the rotations are full for the Suns and not for the Nuggets.
