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It was very close to a big night, but the Spurs faded down the stretch as my underdog pick after leading for a large chunk of the game and the Suns lost as big favorites to a Portland team that was without Simons and Dame Lillard to ruin the money line parlay, ugh! The Pelicans team total also missed and I blame the Warriors for benching their starters (something I didn't see coming considering they had lost 4 in a row) as their backups actually played more defense and held New Orleans to 114 points.
I will also take a hard "L" on the Wizards last night as they were demolished by the one-man wrecking crew that was Kevin Durant. And it might be a while before I trust them again. All in all, it wasn't that bad of a night as some of my player props did well and my DFS lineups would have been pretty solid had I not bit on Jalen McDaniels chalk! It's not often I get to write up an NBA slate on Saturday, but we have 8 games today and I am going to miss some slates next weekend when I head on vacation so I thought "why not drop some NBA bets?" for our amazing RotoBaller readers today!
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Thunder Dan's NBA Best Bets
- 2022-2023 Overall Record: 25-24
- Against the Spread: 11-10
- Game/Team Totals: 4-7
- Moneyline Parlay: 4-4
- Teasers: 6-2
NBA Betting Picks: Against the Spread
New Orleans Pelicans (+2) @ Atlanta Hawks (232 total)
The Pelicans looked rusty for much of last night's game with the Warriors backups, but that's really not going to deter me from taking them at plus money as underdogs today. Those games where you prepare for one lineup (Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green) and then get an entirely different lineup on the floor can be weird and I am willing to cut them some slack, especially since they eventually got it figured out and closed them out with a 9-point win.
The key thing here for New Orleans is that they are finally healthy. They are still experimenting with different personnel combos and I was bummed to see Jonas Valanciunas lose minutes to Larry Nance Jr., but at the same time, they have the depth to allow themselves to be able to go small and play that way if they need to. Trey Murphy III continues to outplay Herb Jones, but they offer very different skills to this team with Jones being a really solid wing defender and Murphy being a fantastic shooter off the bench.
I took some heat from a long-time follower on Twitter for putting Atlanta way down towards the middle of my power rankings yesterday based on the fact that they haven't beaten anyone yet (Detroit twice, Knicks, Orlando, Houston) but it's true and I am not so sure this team is a true contender in the East unless they can get their defense squared away.
I've said it before, Trae Young is amazing and I love the addition of Dejounte Murray, but this team still feels like they are missing something and I think it's the absence of Bogdan Bogdanovic as their sixth man. They're not getting anything from their bench at all this year and on nights when Trae or others aren't shooting well, this team can struggle to score. The Knicks led them by 20 points in the first half before doing "Knicks things" and letting them back into the game. I think they will find much tougher sledding tonight against a good Pelicans team.
My rule with Atlanta is to pick them against weaker opponents and pick against them when they face good competition and so far that method has proven to work. I'll take the underdogs here on the money line.
The Pick: Pelicans ML (+115 DK)
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NBA Betting Picks: Totals
Boston Celtics (-4) @ New York Knicks (223.5 total)
I like the Celtics to win this game, but the spread is in a weird spot right now where it's more than a one-possession kind of game and you just never know when the Knicks are going to show up and play really well (as they did last night in a tough win against Philly). I have Boston in my teaser tonight (teased down to a ML bet basically) but I am really interested in this total. 223.5 points in several points BELOW the league average game so far this year (around 226 points) and we get two teams who have been pretty good on offense this year and just "okay" on the defensive side of the things.
In fact, despite having a neutral projected pace tonight of around 100 possessions, this game has the second-highest projected efficiency rating (behind the ATL-NO game). That Pelicans-Hawks game has almost an identical pace and efficiency projection but a Vegas total that is 10 points higher at 233! This game has 230-point potential, especially when you consider that both teams are playing their second game in two nights and that teams playing on no rest this year have gone over their totals 66% of the time.
Jayson Tatum and the Celtics' offense has been humming and the addition of Jalen Brunson to the Knicks' offense has really improved their efficiency on a nightly basis as well. I am banking on lot of buckets tonight and backing this total as high as 225.5.
The Pick: OVER 223.5 (-110 DK)
I usually do a money line favorite parlay on bigger slates and then one teaser bet as well (usually a lot of underdogs, but not always).
Just know the risks involved with parlaying bets, we are increasing our potential payouts but adding more risk to every bet with every outcome that we include.
PLAYING IT SAFE(R) THAN USUAL ON THE ML PARLAY (and excluding the Suns because they burned us last night)
Favorite Moneyline Parlay: Denver + Minnesota + Milwaukee = (+105 DraftKings)
4-point Teaser: Boston +0, Orlando +7, New Orleans +6 = (+170 DraftKings)
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