5 NBA Teams Who Will Go Under The Posted Win Total

The NBA regular season starts on October 22nd. That's less than a month away! A couple of weeks ago, we looked at five teams which we felt were set to outperform expectations. Now, we will take a look at five NBA teams which may have trouble hitting their projected win total. We're not making wagers on these plays yet, just getting the conversation started. We understand that these are some good teams but these are also some high totals. If you do play on any of them to go under their respective totals, if possible, make sure to shop around for the best lines. These can vary quite a lot from book to book. The lines can also move quickly. The ones we are using were taken from Draft Kings on September 23rd.

BOSTON CELTICS (58.5)

So much went right for the Celtics last season. Jayson Tatum gave up some scoring and became an undisputed top 8 player in the league. Jaylen Brown showed that he could play despite the expectations that come with being the league’s highest-paid player. Newcomers Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday were perfect fits. Even the maligned bench wasn’t a drain. All good. But the injury-prone Porzingis will be on the bench for several months and is no cinch to STAY healthy.  The veteran backcourt of Holiday and Derrick White put some miles on their odometers playing in the Olympics (Tatum, not so much). To get to 59 wins the Celtics will need to keep Al Horford healthy and monitor his minutes, plus get improvement from one of their other emerging bigs – Neemius Queta or Xavier Tillman. Toss in improvement from Eastern rivals, and it looks like an under play is warranted.

DENVER NUGGETS (51.5)

What you see is what you get from the Nuggets, whose core of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and Michael Porter Jr. will basically determine, again, how high they finish this season. The only significant moves the team made in the off-season were allowing Kentavius Caldwell-Pope to walk (to Orlando) and bringing on Russell Westbrook, and that means that the Nuggets will remain talented but not deep – and in the uber-talented Western Conference that’s a huge red flag for totals players. It’s not hard to see the Nuggets going into Heat Mode, kissing off the regular season, and resting the Core Four to keep them ready and healthy for the playoffs. Oddsmakers have already baked a six-game slide into the cake, but if Jokic gets dinged or Murray doesn’t emerge from whatever it was that caused him to stink out the joint in the Olympics, the decline could be even greater.

PHOENIX SUNS (47.5)

OK, an under play could go sideways really fast if Bradley Beal somehow manages to stay healthy and competes in the neighborhood of 65 to 70 games. The Suns would then finally have the Big Three that new ownership had to have – and handsomely paid for. What team wouldn’t want Beal, Devin Booker, and Kevin Durant on the court at the same time? Last season, with Beal on the sidelines most of the time, Booker and Durant combined for nearly 55 points a game. The problem was, that head coach Frank Vogel could never quite get the boys to buy in on the defensive end, so he was replaced by former Bucks HC Mike Budenholzer – who was fired in Milwaukee for pretty much the same reason. Durant, Beal, and Booker are a combined 93 years old, and it will be interesting to see where Phoenix is come mid-March and how important it is for the Suns to finish with a top 4 or 5 seed.

LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS (40.5)

Either Kawhi Leonard finally enjoyed good health or the NBA’s decision to make players take the court 65 times out of 82 in order to qualify for post-season awards had a huge effect. At any rate, Leonard played in more games (68, just above the minimum) than in any season since he started to play his way out of San Antonio in 2016-17. Same with James Harden, who suited up 72 times – the most since 2018-19 with Houston. This year? Who knows? But they’ll have to stay on the court as much, or even more, since running-mate Paul George has flown to coop to Philadelphia. The Clippers chose financial flexibility over star power as they move into their new arena in Los Angeles. The ifs and buts are stacked up like cordwood, and a .500 season that would cover the winning title could be quite a reach.

MILWAUKEE BUCKS (50.5)

They won’t admit it, of course, but if the Bucks could turn back the clock it’s debatable whether they would do the Jrue Holiday-to-Portland-for-Damian Lillard trade all over again. Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo never really got things together, but they’ll have to do it all over again this season. The Bucks are hoping against hope that Doc Rivers can figure things out with a full training camp after a disastrous 17-19 record as Adrian Griffin’s replacement. For the record, under Griffin the Bucks were on a pace to win 57 games; they ended up with 49. So much of this season depends on the health of Khris Middleton, who hasn’t played as many as 70 games in a season since 2018-19. The title window appears to be closing on Milwaukee, with Lillard in his mid-30s, Antetokounmpo hitting the Big 3-0 in a few months, and Middleton 33.