NBA Betting Guide for Thursday 1/12/23: Where Should We Take the Points?
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. You can also track spread bet percentages at FanDuel Sportsbook.
Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's NBA odds?
(All offensive rating, defensive rating, and net rating splits come from PBPStats.com and account for medium-, high-, and very high-leverage situations unless otherwise noted. All injury news and notes come from the official NBA injury report unless otherwise noted.)
Oklahoma City Thunder at Philadelphia 76ers
Under 233.0 (-110)
Oklahoma City Thunder +10.0 (-110)
There aren't any injuries to the true stars in this game, and that helps us trust some larger samples for this matchup between the Thunder and Philadelphia 76ers.
When accounting for injuries, one thing that stands out is that the Thunder are a solid overall team with a league-average offensive rating (113.4) and a better-than-average defensive rating (111.9) when you look at games with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey but with no Aleksej Pokusevski or Jeremiah Robinson-Earl on the court.
For the 76ers, they actually have a net rating of only +1.0 in nine games with James Harden, Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey together. That likely should grow as the sample expands, but they're not a truly dominant team with that trio active.
With how large the spread is, we can take the points with the Thunder.
What is more preferable, though, is the under. These splits all have roughly average efficiency as well as the 76ers' slow pace to deal with. My model anticipates a 228.0-point total.
numberFire's model likes the under as a three-star (i.e. three-unit) suggestion.
Dallas Mavericks at Los Angeles Lakers
Over 235.0 (-110)
Los Angeles Lakers +3.0 (-110)
We have to make some adjustments for this matchup, but it's putting value on the over for me pretty substantially.
The Dallas Mavericks will have Luka Doncic -- which is really all that matters for them -- but also a pretty solid rotation at the top of the lineup. The Lakers are still without Anthony Davis.
Based on these on/off splits, these two teams should be expected to play with efficient offenses (118.4 offensive rating or higher for each) and inefficient defenses (117.3 or higher defensive rating for each). There are always pace concerns with the Mavs, but the Lakers do enough on the other end of things to push the tempo.
Dallas road games have a 50.0% over rate (and a 30.0% cover rate and -2.4 net rating).
The Lakers, in home games, have gone over 61.1% of the time, and their adjusted net rating at home is +3.6.
My model projects a total of 242.1 and thinks the Lakers should be favored.
