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:
- Brooklyn Nets at Oklahoma City Thunder (-7.5), 7 p.m. ET on ESPN
- Orlando Magic at Washington Wizards (-2), 7 p.m. ET
- Detroit Pistons at Miami Heat (-2.5), 7:30 p.m. ET
- Memphis Grizzlies (-1.5) at Atlanta Hawks, 7:30 p.m. ET
- Golden State Warriors at Houston Rockets (-3.5), 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
- Utah Jazz (-9) at Phoenix Suns, 10 p.m. ET
All data as of 4:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday. For live odds and betting percentages click here.
Wednesday NBA: Most Public Bets
- Jazz -9 at Suns: 64% of bets
- Rockets -3.5 vs. Warriors: 63% of bets
- Over 208 in Pistons-Heat: 60% of bets
- Magic +2 at Wizards: 57% of bets
- Over 226.5 in Magic-Wizards: 56% of bets
Wednesday NBA: Injuries to Know
In our NBA Injury Report, we broke down the betting and DFS impact of tonight's key injury situations.
- Orlando Magic: Aaron Gordon (ribs) plans to play through his injury.
- Miami Heat: Josh Richardson (hamstring) is questionable.
- Golden State Warriors: Kevin Durant (ankle) is out.
Here's a snippet from that piece on the Warriors:
Durant missed one game this season for rest. He sat two weeks ago, resulting in a loss to the Magic.
Alfonzo McKinnie started the game Durant rested. He, Damion Lee or Andre Iguodala could draw the start. If Kerr decides to treat this like a playoff game, Iguodala could see plenty of minutes, as the Warriors had two days off prior to tonight’s game and will have an additional two days off afterward. Lee played over 25 minutes in the two games McKinnie recently started, but neither has displayed much consistency.
When Durant has been off the court since DeMarcus Cousins made his season debut, Cousins has been the primary beneficiary. He’s led the Warriors with 1.38 DraftKings points per minute and ranked second to Stephen Curry in usage rate. Over the same 21-game span, the Warriors’ pace has dropped to a team-low 100.25. Durant’s absence has also resulted in team-lows of a -7.7 Net Rating and 52.2% true shooting mark.
Curry has averaged a mere 43.23 DraftKings points per 36 minutes with Durant off the court since Cousins’ debut, and Curry and Klay Thompson have suffered decreases in effective field goal percentage in those minutes.
Curry has made more than half his shots once since the All-Star break, but in the game Durant missed, Curry produced 53.0 DraftKings points in 37.3 minutes on a 42.8% usage rate. The offense revolved around Curry, Cousins and Thompson; those three accounted for 72 of the team’s 97 field goal attempts.
For all injury news and projected starting lineups, see our daily piece here.
Wednesday 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 three players with Projected Plus/Minus values above +7.0 (which is ridiculous value) on DraftKings:
- Deandre Ayton ($6,300) vs. Jazz: +9.06 Projected Plus/Minus
- Ed Davis ($3,200) at Thunder: +8.28 Projected Plus/Minus
- Nikola Vucevic ($9,200) at Wizards: +7.03 Projected Plus/Minus
It's hard to not love Vuc, who has a beautiful matchup against a Washington team that has been generous to opposing centers this season. On the year, the Wizards rank 29th in rebound rate and 27th in defensive efficiency.
Vuc could dominate that frontcourt.
Further, it's possible Aaron Gordon could be limited. He's going to play through a rib injury, and if he's not 100% it'll benefit Vuc, who has increased his usage rate by 2% without his teammate.
We also have a new metric at FantasyLabs called "Leverage Score," which combines our ceiling projections and our ownership projections to identify potentially undervalued guaranteed prize pool plays.
One player with a high Leverage Score on DraftKings is Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell, who has a high ceiling projection and Projected Plus/Minus, but should have low ownership.
A lot of users will try to cram in guards in Thunder-Nets (D'Angelo Russell and Russell Westbrook) and Warriors-Rockets (Stephen Curry and James Harden), which means Mitchell — in one of the best spots of the night against the terrible Suns — should be under-owned in tournaments.
Yes, please.
Wednesday NBA: Best Player Props
There are currently four player props in our tool with a Bet Quality of 10. This season, those bets have both hit at a 57% win rate.
One of those is Spencer Dinwiddieto go over his 4.5-assist prop. He's averaged exactly 4.5 per game since returning from a thumb injury at the beginning of March, and he has nice upside tonight.
The Nets-Thunder matchup has a high total of 232.5, and as I'll get to later in this piece, there's sharp money on this total, indicating the final score could be even higher. The Nets will also be a bit thin with Shabazz Napier, Treveon Graham and DeMarre Carroll all out.
At nearly even money on this prop, it's worth a bet.
Note: Player props move very quickly, and our projections are updated throughout the day in reaction to news. For up-to-date projections compared to posted props, visit the FantasyLabs Player Props Tool.
Wednesday NBA Staff Favorite Bets
Ken Barkley: Heat -1.5 vs. Detroit
Detroit has been sort of the darling of the second half of the season, with lots of wins and incredible efficiency numbers. The Pistons are 8-2 in 10 games since the All-Star break, and they have a good win against Toronto.
But let's keep in mind that many of those wins came against lottery teams: Chicago twice, Atlanta, Minnesota and Cleveland.
Detroit's win over this Heat team a few weeks ago is part of those eight wins, but should be viewed quite skeptically due to the situation each team was in. Detroit was fully healthy while Miami was missing three impact players, had just gotten Goran Dragic back in that game from a long injury absence and then lost Rodney McGruder during it.
Duncan Robinson played key minutes. That's the only sentence I should really have to type.
If you consider that game more of an aberration that heavily favored Detroit situationally, it’s possible this is a situation that favors the Heat in a similar way. The Pistons are on their fourth game in six nights, with this being the third on the road over that span.
Miami has also been playing very well since the All-Star break, that Pistons effort notwithstanding. I think these are two even teams not being rated evenly at the moment, and the Heat should get more of an edge for being rested. This should be more like Miami -3/3.5, and instead it’s 1.5.
I'll take the Heat.
John Ewing: Under 209.5 in Heat-Pistons
More than 60% of tickets are on the Heat-Pistons over, but the line has fallen from an opener of 212.5 to 209.5. What is driving the movement?
Smart money.
While a majority of tickets are on the over, we're tracking nearly 80% of dollars on the under. When there are more tickets on the over but the line decreases, this is called reverse line movement and is an indication of sharp action.
It's been profitable to wager on reverse line movement unders.
Matt LaMarca: Jazz -9 at Suns
I’m laying the points with the Jazz on the road in Phoenix.
The Jazz have improved as the season has progressed, posting a Net Rating of +4.6 points per 100 possessions since the beginning of January. They’ve taken care of business against poor teams over that span, owning a record of 8-5-1 against the spread vs. teams with a winning percentage worse than 50%.
The Jazz are also expected to be back at full strength tonight — Ricky Rubio is listed as probable after missing each of the past two games — and their lineup of Rubio-Donovan Mitchell-Joe Ingles-Jae Crowder-Rudy Gobert has been among the best five-man combinations in basketball this season.
The sharps also appear to love the Jazz despite being large favorites on the road, commanding 91% of the spread money despite garnering just 64% of the tickets.
Bryan Mears: Thunder -295 vs. Nets
It might seem simple, but Bet Labs shows that late in the season (March or April), there's moneyline value on home favorites receiving sharp money:
Those favorites have hit at a 85.7% rate historically, good for a 9.3% Return on Investment (ROI). Those teams went 33-5 (9.8% ROI) last season and have gone 12-1 (20.6% ROI) so far this year. The Thunder qualify against the Nets.
Wednesday NBA Pro System of the Day
At Bet Labs, we have a Pro NBA System called "Pro Tickets vs. Money Overs." It identifies games in which there's sharp money — measured as a higher percentage of over dollars than bets — on the total.
This system has hit at a 55% rate historically, good for a 7.1% ROI. It has gone 64-51-1 this year with a 8.2% ROI.
This system is especially intriguing because it's measured against the closing line. That means sharp money is on the total, it's moving up as a result and it's still hitting for a profitable ROI. That's pretty darn impressive.
There are two matches tonight:
- Over 232.5 in Nets-Thunder, 7 p.m. ET
- Over 223.5 in Grizzlies-Hawks, 7:30 p.m. ET
Wednesday NBA: Most Important Betting Trend for Every Game
- Nets at Thunder: The over is 29-20 when the Thunder are favorites.
- Magic at Wizards: The Wizards are 20-12 straight-up and ATS at home.
- Pistons at Heat: The Heat are 13-20-1 ATS at home and 13-21 as favorites.
- Grizzlies at Hawks: The under is 22-11 in Grizzlies away games.
- Warriors at Rockets: The over is 20-12 in Rockets home games.
- Jazz at Suns: The under is 36-27 when the Suns are underdogs.
For many more trends on every game, download The Action Network app.
