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.)
Miami Heat at New York Knicks
New York Knicks Moneyline (-164)
New York Knicks -3.5 (-110)
The Knicks have their backs up against the wall entering Game 5, as they trail the Miami Heat 3-1 in their Eastern Conference semifinal matchup.
New York has a -7.0 point differential in the series but is at -5.2 when using the four factors to estimate point differentials, and they're also 0-4 against the spread in the series.
That should turn around in Game 5 at home.
New York is more or less on par with the Heat across the four factors but has not been able to convert that into multiple wins.
| via Basketball-Reference | Pace | eFG% | TOV% | ORB% | FT/FGA | ORtg | PTS |
| MIA (3-1) | 92.8 | .504 | 9.1 | 24.4 | .229 | 115.0 | 106.8 |
| NYK (1-3) | 92.8 | .496 | 12.1 | 26.8 | .200 | 107.5 | 99.8 |
numberFire's model is big on the Knicks for tonight's game.
They're 75.7% likely to get the win (my model has them at 70.0%), and that makes their moneyline a four-star suggestion.
New York -3.5 is a three-star play, per numberFire's algorithm.
Los Angeles Lakers at Golden State Warriors
Golden State Warriors Moneyline (-330)
We're seeing some interesting betting discrepancies in this game.
Per FanDuel Sportsbook, 62% of the spread bets are on the Los Angeles Lakers -- but 59% of the money is on the Golden State Warriors. That has caused the spread to extend from 6.0 to 7.5 in favor of the Warriors.
The algorithm at numberFire has a one-star interest in the Lakers +7.5 now that it's grown. My model says that's a fair number, so I'm not particularly interested in it.
The series itself should probably be 2-2. Based on my expected wins metric (using game-by-game four factors to estimate expected scores), the Lakers sit at 2.21 expected wins.
It's a close series, and that keeps me from seeing the Warriors -7.5 as the right play. Instead, just taking the moneyline is appealing.