NBA

NBA Betting Guide for 3/2/21: 3 Moneylines That Look Like Winners

The Heat and Hawks play again after Miami won by 10 on Sunday. Who has the edge in the rematch?

Betting on the NBA can get a little overwhelming throughout the season because there are games every day, and there's just a lot to track throughout the season and entering every night -- spreads, over/unders, injuries, and so on.

But you can rely on numberFire to help. We have a detailed betting algorithm that projects out games to see how often certain betting lines hit, and our oddsFire section of the site allows you to track movement in those lines and see where the action is coming from on particular games.

Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's games? (All odds from NBA Finals odds.)

Memphis Grizzlies at Washington Wizards

numberFire's algorithm isn't unsheathing a ton of high-value spots on the slate tonight, and that's fine. It happens. It is slightly leaning toward the Memphis Grizzlies against the Washington Wizards, rating the Grizzlies' spread (+1.0) as a two-star recommendation out of five and the Memphis moneyline (-102) as a one-star recommendation.

The Wizards are trending up and have a 15-game net rating (which is where I have found some reliability, historically) of -2.4, up from -3.9 on the full season. It's actually +2.1 over the past 10 games.

Memphis, though, has the better adjusted point differential based on my model at a +0.5 with the Wizards at a -4.5 this season.

numberFire rates the Grizzlies as a 54.8% likely winner, making the Grizzlies +1.0 a 57.5% likely proposition. The public is backing the red hot Wizards, but the longer-term data is pointing to Memphis.

Atlanta Hawks at Miami Heat

The betting public is heavy on the Miami Heat in this game, via oddsFire, after their 109-99 win against them on Sunday. There is a whopping 78% of the bets and 86% of the money on the Heat moneyline (-164) and 84% of the bets and 89% of the money on the Heat to cover a 3.5-point spread as home favorites. Whew.

The -164 moneyline is rating out as a three-star recommendation (out of five) based on numberFire's algorithm. We project Miami to win this game against the Atlanta Hawks 73.4% of the time. The moneyline implies only 62.1% win odds.

This is all despite the fact that Jimmy Butler is questionable with right knee inflammation, though the Hawks aren't exactly completely healthy either. The Heat are 11.5 points per 100 possessions worse without Butler than they are with him, so it's fair to assume that bettors expect him to play.

Los Angeles Clippers at Boston Celtics

Let's track the smart money on this game. First of all, a heavy majority of the betting data is backing the Los Angeles Clippers: 78% of the bets on the Clippers to cover (-4.0) and 70% of the bets are on the Clippers to win outright (-178).

But the money is even stronger at 88% and 83%, respectively, on the spread and moneyline.

Using team-level adjusted data from this season, my model anticipated a heavy spread in favor of the Clippers by 9.9 points primarily because the Clippers boast the second-best adjusted offense in the NBA. They have played above their opponents' defensive rating in an NBA-best 77.8% of their games. The Boston Celtics have done so in just 55.9% of their games.

Boston could be without Jaylen Brown (who is questionable). They're a +1.6 in net rating with him on the floor but a -2.0 without him.