NBA Finals Game 6 Betting Guide: Will the Bucks Clinch at Home?
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.)
Phoenix Suns (+176) at Milwaukee Bucks (-210)
Spread: Milwaukee Bucks -5.0
Total: 222.0
The Bucks finally broke serve in the home court battle with their Game 5 win against the Phoenix Suns, leading to a huge reversal of the NBA Finals.
Milwaukee has now carved out a 10.9 net rating over the past three games (two at home) and have dominated in a lot of key stats.
They have a 2.92 assist to turnover ratio compared to 1.51 for the Suns, and they've secured 52.3% of available rebounds. The Bucks have also ended just 9.1% of their possessions with a turnover, compared to 14.3% for the Suns, in this three-game stertch.
Phoenix holds a shooting efficiency edge (57.5% effective field goal percentage to 54.6% and a 60.0% true shooting percentage to 57.6%), but that's really about it these past three games.
Specifically in Game 5, the Bucks maintained a 52.4% rebounding rate and overcame a 13.2% turnover rate due to a 65.5% effective field goal percentage (besting Phoenix's 62.6% mark).
Additionally, the Bucks have really taken advantage of their home games, and that's the big factor for Game 6, of course.
Milwaukee is 9-1 at home in the playoffs with an average point differential of 13.3. Their lone loss was by three points. Milwaukee has also covered in 7 of those 10 games.
Though the Suns were the best road team in the NBA this regular season, they have "just" a 6-4 record in 10 road games this postseason with a 6-4 record against the spread.
In their past five road games, they're 2-3 with a -2.2 point differential and two double-digit losses.
The over in this series is now 5-1-1, and we've seen these games average 9.3 points above the closing total, which really points to the over if trends are your thing.
Using each team's respective home and road data for a simulation (not recommended -- just for effect here), my model would pit the Bucks as 7.5-point favorites and 76.7% likely to win. That makes the Bucks 57.3% likely to cover. That's just some insight into the Bucks' strength at home compared to the Suns' strength on the road in the playoffs.
As for numberFire's model, accounting for everything, it'll be closer than that.
The algorithm views the Bucks as 66.4% likely to win at home, which isn't grand enough to recommend a moneyline bet on either side of things. (For what it's worth, ESPN's Basketball Power Index views the Bucks as 57.8% likely to win.)
As for the spread, the model prefers the Suns' side at +5.0. The median projected margin of victory for the Bucks is 4.5 points, leaving the Suns +5.0 as a 52.37% probability. It's not a lot, but it's something. We've just seen this series be hard to analyze, and that continues into Game 6 even as the sample size grows.
And once more, numberFire's model prefers the over primarily in the NBA Finals. Our algo rates the over as a two-star recommendation out of five and views this game as 55.9% likely to hit the over. That is good for an expected return of 6.7%.
But either way, it's looking like the Bucks should close out the NBA season on Tuesday night.