The 2024 NBA Playoffs Are Here

 

 The NBA Playoffs are here and the betting is just beginning with all the games being televised. 

 

 

Here’s one trend I like to work with. Remember that trends are not automatic bets but rather unique guidelines for that night’s game. You don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself in the NBA playoffs. It’s fast action and moves from day to day. One has to be prepared. 

 

 

Do teams historically tend to bounce back in their next game after getting embarrassed against the spread (ATS)? The short answer is yes! That fits perfectly with my contrarian approach to sports betting. I like to go against the grain because that’s where we find good value wagers.

 

In this case, if a team does badly in a given game I would expect most of the public to bet AGAINST them in the following match of the series. The public almost always remembers what they just watched. That creates an imprint in their brain and is difficult to go against it. 

 

That forces sportsbooks to adjust their odds and it creates good opportunities for contrarians like us!

Obviously, as a professional gambler, I need data to back up my intuitions. Like I stated above, I start with this as a guideline. 

 

 

More specifically, teams that have lost the past game by 12.5+ points ATS hold a 271-213 record ATS: that’s a 56% success rate and a 9.2% ROI (Return on Investment)! If it got destroyed by 22.5+ points ATS, you get a 67-45 record (59.8% success rate, 16.7% ROI). That’s an incredible betting angle, isn’t it?

 

 

Overall, teams losing against the spread on two straight occasions in a series have gone 278-251 (52.6%) in the following game since the 1990/91 playoffs. We observe a funny coincidence: the win percentage, 52.6%, is exactly the same as the one we obtained earlier when focusing on the previous game only (instead of the last two)!

Now, if you impose the restriction of only betting teams that have lost by at least 4.5 points ATS in both of their previous meetings, you get a 141-106 record (57.1%). The corresponding ROI turns out to be 11.3% when betting at -105 lines. Here’s another lesson for the uninformed. Capping goes in streaks. Hitting 75% for a two week period is fantastic. But it also has a betting regression to the norm. 

 

Injuries to Double and Triple check. 

 

Injuries took a crazy toll on seeding this year, in one spot in particular: The 76ers. Philadelphia has the third-best odds to come out of the East — not just among these lower seeds, but among all teams — trailing only Milwaukee and Boston. The reason: Joel Embiid is back and looks … OK. Philadelphia in the No. 7 looks by far like the most likely lower-seeded team to make a deep run in a very shallow Eastern playoff pool. The West is a little more up in the air in that there is more than one team at the top and at the bottom that could represent the conference. Denver is the favorite, but Phoenix has the same odds to make the Finals as the 76ers and doesn’t have to go through the Play-In. The Lakers are always in the mix, but the No. 8 seed is a tougher road — hence their longer odds (the Heat at +1400 are in the same situation).