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 can we 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.)
Boston Celtics at Atlanta Hawks
Atlanta Hawks +5.5 (-110)
You won't find many larger shooting discrepancies in a playoff series than what we have for the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks.
In terms of effective field goal percentage (eFG%), the Celtics are shooting 59.8% through two games with the Hawks at 46.0%. Those marks would rank 1st and 30th, respectively, on the full season, with the Hawks' number sitting a full 5.6 percentage points below the worst-shooting squad of the regular season.
Something has to give eventually, as the Hawks were at least a near-average team at 54.1% on the regular season (with the NBA average being 54.5%). Boston did allow a 52.8% eFG% for the regular season, ranking third-best, but that's still not 46.0%.
The Hawks are still winning the offensive rebounding battle and aren't turning it over much. It's just that they can't buy a bucket right now.
Back home, the shooting should improve (again, it can't get much worse than it has been through two games). They're 17.5% on wide-open threes (7 of 40).
Given that, the long-term data shows value in the Hawks being able to cover at home. numberFire's model likes the Hawks to cover 59.1% of the time.
Cleveland Cavaliers at New York Knicks
New York Knicks Moneyline (-124)
There haven't been a lot of points in this series so far. No team has broken 110 points in a game, and in each contest, the loser was held below 100.
Will that continue for Game 3? It might.
Remember how we laid out the 46.0% eFG% for the Hawks and pointed out how it was 5.6 points worse than the 30th-ranked team for the full season? The New York Knicks are shooting 44.0% in terms of eFG% through two games, a playoff-worst.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are sitting up at 53.8%.
The turnovers are pretty close, and the Knicks are making an impact on the glass, but if the shooting for New York stays cold, obviously, they're going to struggle to score and win.
They, like the Hawks, were just below average in eFG% for the season (54.1%), and they're facing a team that stifled opponents pretty well (Cleveland was 7th-best by eFG% allowed defensively at 53.5%).
Pace is down for this matchup, too, with an average of 90.8 possessions per game.
With positive shooting regression coming for the Knicks and an advantage on the boards, the Knicks moneyline (-124) is looking like the best route.
Denver Nuggets at Minnesota Timberwolves
Over 222.0 (-110)
Wins by 29 and 9 have the Denver Nuggets up 2-0 in their series against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Denver is currently sweeping all of the four factors and holds an eFG% lead of 57.1% to 51.6%. Led by Jamal Murray's 32.0 points per game (with 5.5 rebounds and 6.5 assists) and Nikola Jokic's line of 20.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 7.5 assists, Denver is in the driver's seat in the series.
After a 41-point Game 2, Anthony Edwards is averaging 29.5 for the series. No other T'Wolve is above 13.5 points per game.
While the 2.0-point spread in favor of Denver isn't unreasonable, it's likely that we get a bounce-back game from the Timberwolves. The only problem with that is that they have not been particularly strong down the stretch in the first place with a +0.2 net rating after the All-Star break. Denver was actually just a +0.4.
But the best angle looks like the total. My model thinks this total should be 223.7, and numberFire's algorithm finds interest in only the total, rating it a one-star play out of five.