NBA betting underdogs were unleashed in Round 1 of the NBA Playoffs last year, going an incredible 32-19-1 ATS (with one pick’em game) and covering the spread at a near 63 percent rate.
And that was the story for most of the 2014 postseason as well, as NBA underdogs finished the playoffs with a 52-36-1 ATS mark (57.8 percent). That Round 1 trend bled over into the conference semifinals, where underdogs finished 14-9 ATS, then went south in the conference finals (3-9 ATS) before showing up a bit in the NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs (3-2 ATS).
So, will basketball bettors see similar success blindly betting the underdog when the 2015 NBA Playoffs start Saturday?
“With the Western Conference, it’s a lot closer than the Eastern Conference this year,” Mark Tomita, assistant manager at the Westgate Superbook in Las Vegas tells Covers. “The West looks pretty wide open this year.”
Tomita does expect the public to come in heavy on the notable favorites, like Golden State and Cleveland, but says early money has already taken San Antonio, which is a 1.5-point pup at the Los Angeles Clippers Sunday.
As for which playoff teams hold the most underdog value, here are the top NBA underdog bets this season:
New Orleans Pelicans - 26-13 ATS
Boston Celtics - 31-17 ATS
Milwaukee Bucks - 29-20-1 ATS
Atlanta Hawks – 12-9-1 ATS
Houston Rockets - 16-12 ATS
Memphis Grizzlies – 13-10 ATS
In a cruel twist of this trend, NBA bettors should beware of double-digit NBA Playoff underdogs. Since the 2003 NBA Playoffs, when Round 1 went to a best-of-seven format from best-of-five, double-digit dogs are just 29-42-3 ATS (6-68 SU) in the postseason - covering just 41 percent of the time.
There are a pair of double-digit underdogs on the board for this weekend’s games: New Orleans +11 at Golden State, and Boston +11 at Cleveland. Those two teams, as shown above, just so happen to be the top underdog bets in the NBA this season.
Underdog-heavy results are a double-edged sword for sportsbooks. While the general public gravitates towards the big-name favorites, the sharp bettors tend to take the points in the NBA Playoffs. This is especially true with some of the earlier weekday postseason time slots – the 7 p.m. ET starts – which are on at 4 p.m. in Nevada.
These weekday afternoon games in Las Vegas don’t get much walk-in traffic from tourists and conference goers, which leaves the books to go one-on-one with the wiseguys in the opening round of the NBA Playoffs, with little money from the betting public to limit liability.
“The midweek people aren't getting engaged until after 5 p.m. and it makes the late games much more attractive, since they can come in and place a bet and have a beer,” Jay Rood, vice president of race and sports from MGM properties in Las Vegas, told Covers last April. “That leaves us going head-to-head with sharps in the early games. So if the underdogs are covering in those early midweek games, it’s not good for us.”
Last year’s early underdog trend did pull a fair share of public bettors away from the favorites. Rood said that NBA regular season games will see an 80/20 split of money on the favorite and underdog but that difference drops to 75/25 in the postseason.
As for the regular season giving any hints of how the playoffs could lean, oddsmakers did their job handicapping the games. Favorites and underdogs split, each going 601-601-27 ATS on the year.
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Read More... [Source: Covers.com: NBA News and Stories]
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