Wednesday NBA Betting, DFS Cheat Sheet for All 6 Games: Favorite Bets, Pro System Matches, More
Photo credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports. Pictured: Donovan Mitchell
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 Dinwiddie to 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.