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I was feeling great about last night's bets sitting at 3-0 and heading into the evening games. And I felt even better when I saw the Warriors race out to an 11-0 lead against the Jazz. And then I went to bed because I have to get up early every day. When I woke up I saw the Warriors lost and then I saw the Lakers and Wolves both lost as huge favorites, too. But again, I'll take 3-1 any day of the week and I consider this hot streak still intact!
We usually have small slates on Thursdays, but we get seven NBA games tonight and so I've decided to continue to give the people what they want - more free NBA bets! We have to soak up all this NBA action this week and next week, too, since we are going to have a whole week off for the All-Star break here before you know it. Be advised that today is the trade deadline, so there are certainly some deals that could down today that could affect the odds, and if you're someone who is risk-averse it might make sense to wait until after the 3:00 PM EST deadline has passed before you make any final decisions on bets.
It's a long season and I would strongly encourage everyone to bet responsibly and sustainably so you don't have to sit out at any point if your discretionary funds dry up. Definitely follow me on Twitter @ThunderDanDFS as I toss out some picks and player props to the public when I get a chance. In this article, I'll be providing my favorite picks against the spread, game totals, parlays, teasers, and player props for NBA games on Thursday, February 10th, 2022. I would highly encourage you to join our RotoBaller premium slack group by signing up for a premium pass!
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Thunder Dan's NBA Best Bets for Today
- Season Record 86-73
- Against the Spread 52-39
- Over/Under 21-29
- Other/Props 13-5
- Teasers/Parlays are not included in the overall record
I am NOT including any picks I give out on Twitter on days that this article doesn't run, just as an FYI. But I usually do put out my model on Tuesdays and Thursdays too.
I am not tracking units with these picks. If you're wondering how many units to bet on each pick, just assume I'm betting one unit on each spread, total, or prop and likely only a half unit at most on each parlay or teaser. Here is today's model, which now includes my personal spread calculation. I highlighted spots in yellow where my odds are significantly different from Vegas and a few of those are going to end up as official picks, while the others you can bet at your own leisure.
One thing you may notice is that I added an AVG +/- column and an ATS margin column. These columns track the season-long trends of the margin by which teams are covering (or not covering) the spread as well as the margin by which they have been going over or under their totals.
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NBA Betting Picks Against the Spread
There are no spread picks today! The only teams that rate well in the model are the Suns to cover at home (I'm not going there) and the Nets as road dogs (they've been terrible lately, I'll pass)
NBA Totals Betting Picks
New York Knicks (+10) @ Golden State Warriors (217.5 total)
I had a whole breakdown of this game typed up and was ready to take the under and then I just went and backtested some stuff and I just don't like it. The model likes this under, but my gut says it's risky. I'm not endorsing it.
The Pick: NO PICK, JUST KIDDING!
LA Clippers (+6.5) @ Dallas Mavericks (215 total)
I do have one more bet that I like, though it's probably the riskiest one in all honestly. I love the Mavs tonight at home against the Clippers and I think we could see an offensive explosion from them. Dallas is playing really well on offense right now even without Kristaps Porzingis while the Clippers have been really bad on defense. They've allowed 130+ points in back-to-back games and have given up 120 or more now in four of their last six games. The additions of Norman Powell and Robert Covington at the deadline should have helped their defense, but so far that hasn't been the case.
Hopefully, the Mavs are making shots tonight and they can continue their offensive barrage, I think it's definitely worth a shot so I will roll with their team total over 110.5 points and count on Luka doing some work and getting his teammates plenty of open looks.
The Pick: Dallas team total over 110.5 points (-110 DK Sportsbook)
Milwaukee Bucks (+3.5) @ Phoenix Suns (233.5 total)
This game should be awesome! It's a rematch of the NBA finals and we haven't seen these two heavyweights square off since then. We get both teams in solid form and fully healthy, too (other than Brook Lopez, who has been out all season, of course). The Suns are favored at home and I like them to win, but I'm simply not betting the spread in this one and I just want to enjoy watching some of the best basketball we will see this week.
My angle is the under, plain and simple. It's the biggest discrepancy in the model and this total feels super inflated due to some recent totals from each team. I went and checked the final scores of all six NBA Finals games from last season to see if we could get some help with trends here and only one of those six games went over this 233.5 total (it was 242 and an outlier from the rest of the results). The average of those six games was 221 points, which is well below this total tonight.
Both teams have almost exactly the same personnel this season and even though Phoenix is playing faster this year, I expect this game to slow down a bit from how these teams normally play, especially if it's a tight game down the stretch. I'm betting the under here with confidence as it's my favorite bet on this really tough card tonight.
The Pick: UNDER 233.5 (good down to 230.5) -110 DK Sportsbook
NBA Prop Bet Picks
You know the old saying of "it's ain't broke, don't fix it," right? Well, why in the world would we stop betting Pascal Siakam props today when he's getting one of the best matchups on the board against the Rockets? Over the last 15 days, Houston is allowing the second-most points and rebounds to the PF position and we saw how easily Siakam smashed this prop yesterday against another inferior opponent in OKC.
Today they only raised his points/rebounds prop by one to 31.5 and I'll easily grab the over here. His PRA is set at 36.5 and that's very doable, too, but the odds are a little better right now on the points and boards and I'd rather not have to worry about the assists.
The Pick: Pascal Siakam over 31.5 points/rebounds (-110 DK Sportsbook)
My second-favorite prop comes from that mess of a game between Brooklyn and Washington. Both teams really suck right now but I think that's probably a good thing for fantasy production and that this game does stay close, though I'm not trying to predict who wins and I'm not sure too many people care (sorry Brooklyn fans, your team is literally irrelevant right now other than everyone waiting on some Harden trade news).
The guy I'm targeting here is Spencer Dinwiddie. He's been struggling to put up stats lately if you look at his game log, but the Wizards have been getting blown out and his minutes have been down as a result. He's still averaging well over 30 points/rebounds/assists in games without Bradley Beal this season and we got the news just the other day that Beal is now done for the season.
Brooklyn has been getting gashed by opposing offenses and particularly by opposing guards. I like Dinwiddie to his hit his PRA prop here as it's come down quite a bit (all the way down to 24.5) from where we would expect to see it.
The Pick: Spencer Dinwiddie over 24.5 points/rebounds/assists (-120 DK Sportsbook)
UPDATE: Dinwiddie was traded to the Mavericks today, so this bet is no longer available. I am replacing it with Jae Crowder over 1.5 threes as the Bucks give up a lot of long balls and specifically to the PF position.
Our ML favorites failed last night when the Lakers and Wolves took a giant dump as big favorites, but I think there is some merit to parlaying a few faves tonight instead of trying to take some stances on these spreads. Here is who I like.
The Pick: TOR/MEM/DAL/GSW ML Parlay (+142 DK Sportsbook)
NBA Betting Picks: Team Stats Matrix
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I use this chart when making player prop bets! I hope you find this information useful when making your bets as well.
Thanks for checking this new column out and check back every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the rest of the NBA season! Good luck and bet responsibly!
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