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.)
Minnesota Timberwolves at Sacramento Kings
Sacramento Kings Moneyline (-164)
Sacramento Kings -4.0 (-112)
With De'Aaron Fox questionable for tonight's game, we're seeing a bit of jostling with the spread and moneyline. While I try all I can to avoid games with key players questionable, it's pretty difficult to do tonight.
From there, we can either hang it up for the day and have a smaller card (which is always fine), or we can assume the worst and see if there's still value somewhere.
In this case, there is.
The Kings, in games with Domantas Sabonis active but with Fox off the floor, have a +4.3 net rating on non-garbage-time possessions.
The Minnesota Timberwolves did recently get Karl-Anthony Towns back and are at full strength overall. They just played last night, beating the Golden State Warriors on the road by a score of 99-96.
Despite that, accounting for current team efficiency, rest, and other inputs, my model likes the Kings by 6.8.
numberFire's model thinks the Kings cover with a 56.2% likelihood and views the moneyline's anticipated return on investment as 19.0%.
New Orleans Pelicans at Portland Trail Blazers
New Orleans Pelicans Team Total Over 118.5 (-120)
With the Portland Trail Blazers' playoff hopes down to 0.1%, they're considering shutting down Damian Lillard for the rest of the season. Along with that, it wouldn't really be a surprise to see them list a lot of key players as out by tip-off other than Lillard, too. After all, they just played last night (losing by six points at home).
What does it mean for tonight's game? Well, the Pelicans are 10.5-point road favorites.
Since 2018, double-digit road favorites after the All-Star break are 94-18 outright (83.9%) with a 59.8% cover rate (67-45-0). That trend alone puts the Pelicans -10.5 in play (as does my data), but there's a better angle here.
These lopsided games also have a 61.3% over rate, and we can get access to an over while not worrying about the Blazers' side of things by betting the Pelicans' team total of 118.5. My model projects them to score 124.1 tonight.
Chicago Bulls at Los Angeles Clippers
Over 219.5 (-110)
The Chicago Bulls hold the 10 seed in the East right now and are 3.5 games ahead of the 11 seed, so their chance to reach the play-in is quite high.
The Los Angeles Clippers are 75.8% likely to make the playoffs as the current 5 seed in the Western Conference.
So, yes, this game has playoff implications, which helps explain a fairly tight 4.0-point spread in favor of the home side.
But the Clippers are without Paul George, and in their recent sample without him but with Kawhi Leonard and Russell Westbrook active, they have a 122.5 offensive rating and a 124.9 defensive rating -- very over-friendly numbers. In two games with George out in that split, they've averaged 118.5 points while allowing 118.0 for a total of 236.5.
The Bulls, since the break, have gone over their own implied team total by an average of 2.7 points per game, as well.