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.)
New York Knicks at Miami Heat
New York Knicks +6.0 (-110)
I badly want to pounce on the Knicks ML (+205) to force a Game 7, but I'm -- rightfully -- scared of a close game with Jimmy Butler lurking late. He seems to defy math and reason at times.
New York should win this game. They should have won most of these games. Per Basketball Reference's Four Factors, their own skill from shooting, driving to the basket, and dominating the glass is significantly overwhelming Miami to this point. They've just failed to take care of the basketball:
| Team | Pace | eFG% | TOV% | ORB% | FT/FGA | ORtg | PTS |
| MIA (3-2) | 92.8 | 0.502 | 9.5 | 24.2 | 0.219 | 114.3 | 106 |
| NYK (2-3) | 92.8 | 0.511 | 13.1 | 28.8 | 0.236 | 110.2 | 102.2 |
That 13.1% turnover rate is giving me flashbacks to last year's Warriors-Celtics NBA Finals series. Boston outplayed Golden State and never stopped turning the ball over. New York -- somehow -- won Game 5 despite 19 turnovers.
There's a lot of room for the Knicks to improve, and Miami is a dropoff from deep from being in real trouble. Their 41.6% rate on wide-open threes from this series won't stay forever; that mark is usually around 38.5%, and the Heat's regular season rate was 37.1%, which was the sixth-worst mark in the NBA.
New York can win this game -- and the series. I'll take the points in case they stumble late.
Golden State Warriors at Los Angeles Lakers
Golden State Warriors +3.0 (-110) - Lean
Under 221.0 (-110)
I wasn't the only one to hypothesize the Lakers would mail in Game 5, but they did. A whopping 42.9% of the Dubs' shots in Game 5 were considered open against the team with, otherwise, the best defensive rating in the playoffs so far (106.6). Their 25.0% offensive-rebounding rate (oREB%) in the first four games also dropped to just 17.0% on Wednesday.
We should get a hellacious effort from L.A. considering if this series is heading back to San Francisco, their season is likely toast. However, Los Angeles has yet to provide a real answer to Golden State's Game 4 adjustment to run more high pick-and-rolls with Stephen Curry.
Curry is averaging 0.99 points per possession in that situation, which is the fourth-best mark in the playoffs among those with at least eight attempts per game. Effort can erase some of that production, but it's been effective.
As for the total, it's my favorite play in this game. In addition to increased defensive effort from the Lakers, the shooting splits from Game 5 won't stay. Golden State had a 58.2 eFG% in Game 5, and L.A. wasn't far behind at 54.0%. In the first four games of this series, the Dubs were at 53.0%, and the Lakers were at 51.8%. It's bound to drop moving forward.