RADIO
It's the most wonderful time of the year! While the sports world will be focused on football tomorrow (and I will be focused on how much food I can cram into my belly), we have one of the biggest NBA slates of the season with 13 games tonight. The NBA takes Thanksgiving off but then returns with twelve more games on Friday which is pretty darn perfect if you ask me and will round out one heck of a sports week quite nicely.
I mentioned this Monday but Vegas is catching on to these totals and dropping the O/U numbers accordingly, giving us less to work with. I still think we can find a few spots to attack here, but a general trend that I am seeing is that there are fewer obvious spots to bet each day, making my job all the harder. That's why I used modeled data and trends and try to find multiple angles for these picks daily.
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 you're 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 Wednesday, November 24th, 2021. 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 26-33
- Against the Spread 14-8
- Over/Under 8-11
- Teasers/Parlays 3-14
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 might have to stop betting on Knicks games going over as they failed to go over (but still won) despite scoring 63 first-half points.
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
L.A. Lakers (+1.5) @ Indiana Pacers (218.5 total)
I'm going right back after the Lakers tonight! They will get LeBron back from a one-game suspension, but this is team is in a funk and has looked really bad (especially on defense) for much of this season. They went down by 20+ points to the Knicks (who hadn't exactly been playing inspiring basketball lately) and weren't able to overcome it last night losing by five. Simply said, the Lakers are playing some poor basketball right now and have yet to mesh all their new pieces. At some point they will get it together, but that might be later than sooner as this roster needs to be overhauled to get LeBron and AD some better role players than the likes of aging players such as DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo, Avery Bradley, and Carmelo Anthony.
Meanwhile, the Pacers are trending in a positive direction. After missing key pieces like Brogdon, LeVert, or Duarte for several games each, they should have all of their key pieces in the lineup tonight (LeVert is still questionable, but I bet he plays). The Pacers have won two straight, including a blowout of a good (but tired and shorthanded) Bulls team on Monday. Indy has some other impressive wins this year over Utah, Philly, and Miami and they are a better team than their record shows in my opinion.
I will take the home team here and the trends support the pick as the Lakers are now the worst team ATS this season at 6-13. The Pacers have improved to 10-9 ATS this year and thanks to that big Bulls win they now have a positive point differential.
The Pick: Pacers -1.5 (-110 DraftKings Sportsbook)
Washington Wizards (-3.5) @ New Orleans Pelicans (209.5 total)
So the team that the Lakers passed up for worst team ATS just happens to be the 3-16 New Orleans Pelicans. After picking up a nice win against the Clippers last weekend, the Pellies are back to their old antics and have dropped two straight to Indiana and Minnesota.
They are clearly missing the scoring and interior presence of Zion Williamson and have not been able to get much from their guards either as Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Devonte Graham have been mediocre at best. Graham is questionable again tonight and hasn't played in a week. This Pelicans team has been lackluster on offense and defense and simply hasn't been able to get much from anyone other than Jonas Valanciunas on a regular basis.
The Wizards have been one of the biggest surprises in the league this season with an 11-6 record so far. They have dropped three of their last four but those four games were against Miami (twice) and Charlotte (twice), both of whom are pretty good teams. Washington is the better team here on both ends of the floor and handed the Pelicans a five-point loss in their first meeting last week. All the trends line up for them to do it again, so give me the road favorites here.
The Pick: Wizards -3.5 (-110 DraftKings Sportsbook)
NBA Over/Under Betting Picks
Chicago Bulls (-8.5) @ Houston Rockets (213.5 total)
The Bulls are still on the road and have battled admirably without their center Nikola Vucevic, but it all came crashing down in a bad loss to Indy on Monday. The good news is they could get Vuc back from the COVID protocols tonight and they get a matchup with one of the worst teams in the league - the 1-16 Houston Rockets!
The Rockets have been a very poor offensive team this season and struggle to score 100 points on a nightly basis. In fact, they've eclipsed the century mark just once in their last five games. Chicago is one of the better defensive teams in the league and that's just more bad news for Houston.
I look for the Bulls to grind down the Rockets tonight, especially if Vuc is in the lineup as they love to play a slower, more methodical style of basketball than Houston. The trends line up well here, too, as despite Houston's fast pace of play they have gone under their totals 70% of the time this year.
The Pick: UNDER 213.5 (good down to 211.5), -110 DraftKings Sportsbook
NBA Teaser/Parlay Betting Picks
Our five-team ML parlay came up just one win short on Monday, so let's drop it to four games today instead of five. The Jazz and Bucks are such big favorites that adding them to the parlay barely increases the payout, but they are obviously pretty safe teams for parlays tonight if you need one more team.
The Wizards will be key here as they are the only team favored by fewer than 7 points, let's hope they take care of business!
The Pick: CHA/CHI/WAS/GSW ML Parlay (+210 DraftKings Sportsbook)
NBA Betting Picks: Positional Stats Matrix
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Here's my positional stats matrix for use when betting player props. For each team, you can see how players from each of the five positions have fared against them in points, rebounds, and assists (and PRA is a total of all three and a popular prop bet type).
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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