Friday NBA Betting, DFS Cheat Sheet for All 9 Games: Favorite Bets, Injuries to Know, More
Photo credit: Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports. Pictured: Paul George and Russell Westbrook
In today's NBA betting and DFS cheat sheet, we give notes on the betting market and key injuries, as well as analysis on DFS plays, player props and our favorite bets.
Here are the games on tonight's slate:
- Chicago Bulls at Orlando Magic (-8), 7 p.m. ET
- Washington Wizards at Charlotte Hornets (-5), 7 p.m. ET
- San Antonio Spurs at Toronto Raptors (-7.5), 7 p.m. ET on ESPN
- New Orleans Pelicans at Indiana Pacers (-6.5), 7 p.m. ET
- Detroit Pistons (-4.5) at Atlanta Hawks, 7:30 p.m. ET
- Minnesota Timberwolves (-5) at New York Knicks, 7:30 p.m. ET
- Los Angeles Clippers (-2.5) at Memphis Grizzlies, 8 p.m. ET
- Denver Nuggets (-5.5) at Dallas Mavericks, 8:30 p.m. ET
- Utah Jazz at Oklahoma City Thunder (-4.5), 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
All data as of 3 p.m. ET on Friday. For live odds and betting percentages click here.
Pro Betting System of the Day | Betting Trends
Friday NBA: Most Public Bets
- Thunder -4.5 vs. Jazz: 79% of bets
- Pistons -4.5 at Hawks: 78% of bets
- Pacers -6.5 vs. Pelicans: 78% of bets
- Magic -8.5 vs. Bulls: 75% of bets
- Hornets -5 vs. Wizards: 72% of bets
Friday NBA: Injuries to Know
In today's NBA Injury Report, we broke down the betting and DFS impact of the slate's key injury situation tonight:
- Wolves center Karl-Anthony Towns (accident) is questionable.
- Pacers center Myles Turner (hip) and guard Tyreke Evans (ankle) are questionable.
Here's a snippet from that piece on Towns:
Towns is arguably the league’s most durable player, as he has yet to miss a game in his career and holds the active record for consecutive games played (303).
If Friday marks his first missed game, Taj Gibson would likely start at center to match up against DeAndre Jordan. Dario Saric and Anthony Tolliver would also benefit from increased playing time in a depleted frontcourt, while Luol Deng can fill in for extra minutes at power forward.
Towns leads the team with a 26.5% usage rate this season, and his potential absence opens up plenty of offensive opportunities for his teammates.
Wiggins, Derrick Rose, and Jeff Teague stand to be the primary beneficiaries if Towns is ruled out, with each player posting a usage differential of at least +6.1% with Towns off the court after trading away Jimmy Butler. Wiggins has led the team with an average of 1.21 DraftKings points per minute in that situation, while Teague is the best pure value on DraftKings given his FantasyLabs Bargain Rating of 96%.
Friday NBA: DFS Values and Tournament Plays
Due to some injury situations, along with new roles for players after the trade deadline, there's a ton of value on today's NBA DFS slate. Right now, there are four players with Projected Plus/Minus values above +8.0 (which is absurd) on DraftKings:
- Kent Bazemore ($4,200) vs. Pistons: +9.76 Projected Plus/Minus
- Delon Wright ($3,700) vs. Clippers: +9.07 Projected Plus/Minus
- Luke Kennard ($4,000) at Hawks: +8.94 Projected Plus/Minus
- Cody Zeller ($5,200) vs. Wizards: +8.93 Projected Plus/Minus
Bazemore is currently the slate's best value on DraftKings, as he should see a role increase with starter Kevin Huerter doubtful tonight with a sprained ankle. Per our FantasyLabs Models, Huerter and Bazemore have the strongest negative correlation on team (-0.40), which means Baze should excel with the rookie out.
We also have a new metric this year at FantasyLabs called "Leverage Score," which combines our ceiling projections and our ownership projections to identify potential undervalued GPP plays.
One player with a high Leverage Score tonight on DraftKings is Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry, who has a high ceiling projection and Projected Plus/Minus, but should have low ownership.
Lowry has exceeded his salary-based expectations in seven of his last 10 games, including going off for 46.0 fantasy points in the last game before the All-Star break. His opponent today, the Spurs, have been one of the worst road defenses all season, which bodes well for his ceiling tonight.
Friday NBA: Best Player Props
There are currently seven player props in our tool with a Bet Quality of 10. This season, those bets have both hit at a 57% rate.
One is Kenrich Williams to go over his 5.5-rebound prop. He's been a big part of the Pelicans rotation recently, playing 30-plus minutes over his last nine games.
Over that span, he's averaged 9.4 rebounds per game. He would have hit the over on this prop in all nine of those games. It seems the props market is still undervaluing his current role, and that's unlikely to change, especially with Anthony Davis having his minutes scaled back.
Friday NBA: Our Experts' Favorite Bets
John Ewing: Cody Zeller over 11.5 points
The Hornets-Wizards over/under opened at 230 and has been bet up to 232. History suggests that when two teams with losing records play their first game after the All-Star break, they are often higher scoring than the oddsmakers expect.
This game is going to be a shootout, and although Cody Zeller is averaging only 9.6 points per game this season, he should easily top that and his posted over/under of 11.5 points.
The Wizards defense has been generous to opposing centers, allowing 24.2 points per game, which ranks 26th in the NBA. In a high-scoring game against a soft defense, I like Zeller to go over his point total.
Matt LaMarca: Thunder -4.5 vs. Jazz
The Jazz have appeared to turn things around recently, winning 12 of their past 16 games while posting a Net Rating of +6.4. That said, they’ve benefited from an extremely favorable schedule over that span, with just three of those wins coming against current playoff teams.
Today’s matchup against the Thunder should be a difficult one for the Jazz. OKC has won both of the teams' first two matchups this season and two of three regular-season matchups last year, and the Thunder's style of play appears to give the Jazz trouble.
The Thunder have played at the second-fastest pace in the league this season at 105.8 possessions per game, and the Jazz are just 9-15 against the spread vs. teams that average at least 103 possessions per game over the past two years.
Bryan Mears: Over … in several games
John mentioned that piece on overs hitting right after the All-Star break, and I'm going to that well tonight. Unders dominated last night, hitting in five of the six games.
I'll bet on that reversing tonight.
Further, John's trend is specifically looking at teams with losing records, and there was only one last night. Per that piece, when teams with losing records play right after the All-Star break, the over has historically hit at a 67.6% rate.
Cavs-Suns went under last night, but there are four more games tonight:
- Over 232 in Wizards-Hornets
- Over 217 in Bulls-Magic
- Over 222 in Pistons-Hawks
- Over 221.5 in Wolves-Knicks
Friday NBA: Pro System of the Day
At Bet Labs, we have a Pro NBA System called "Tickets vs. Money NBA Spread." It highlights games in which there's a discrepancy between the amount of wagers and dollars bet on a game's spread:
This system has produced a 5.3% Return on Investment (ROI) since 2015, when we first started tracking bet and money percentages.
The reason this system is so intriguing is because it's measuring the win rate against the closing number. It's identifying sharp money on the spread, it's moving as a result and the spread is still hitting at a high rate.
There's one match tonight:
- Knicks +5.5 vs. Wolves
Friday NBA: Most Important Betting Trend for Every Game
- Bulls at Magic: The under is 22-13 in Bulls' conference games.
- Wizards at Hornets: The Wizards are 9-21 ATS on the road and 12-17 as underdogs.
- Spurs at Raptors: The over is 21-9 in Spurs' road games and 20-7 when they're dogs.
- Pelicans at Pacers: The under is 22-8 in Pacers' home games.
- Pistons at Hawks: The Hawks are 8-18 ATS at home.
- Wolves at Knicks: The under is 17-10 in Knicks' home games.
- Clippers at Grizzlies: The Clippers are 20-9 ATS as favorites.
- Nuggets at Mavericks: The Nuggets are 30-27 ATS but just 10-18 on the road.
- Jazz at Thunder: The over is 27-17 when the Thunder are favorites.
For many more trends on every game, download The Action Network app.
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