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When you take a stand on games early in the day, sometimes the late injury news works out in your favor and sometimes it bites you. I was counting on Nikola Vucevic playing for Chicago on Monday night, but he didn't suit up and the Bulls failed to cover against the red-hot Sixers. We did get some solid CLV (closing line value) on the Spurs as LeBron James was announced out before game time and San Antonio came through with a nice home win. With twelve games on tap tonight, there are a lot of spots we can target and it's going to be tempting to recommend more than the usual three to five plays here in this article.
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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 Wednesday, March 9, 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 120-111-2
- Against the Spread 63-53-2
- Over/Under 26-36
- Other/Props 31-23
- 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.
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
Toronto Raptors (-1.5) @ San Antonio Spurs (229 total)
I know, I know - I am basically a full-on Spurs fan by this point of the season but I really like them again here at home against a limping Raptors squad. San Antonio should get Devin Vassell and Lonnie Walker IV back tonight, while the Raptors will likely have Fred VanVleet back, too, but will still be without OG Anunoby.
The Raptors have a better record, sure, but they've been playing poorly of late and I view these teams fairly equally in terms of talent if you toss the records aside. The Spurs are at home and have the best player on the floor (sorry FVV or Siakam, but Dejounte Murray is THAT GUY).
Give me the Spurs money line here at plus odds. They are probably one of the only live dogs on this slate, which is surprising given how many games we have.
The Pick: Spurs ML (+105)
Denver Nuggets (-4.5) @ Sacramento Kings (239.5 total)
These two teams have met three times in the last two months, with the Nuggets winning all three games with an average margin of victory of 11 points. Denver has the fourth-best net rating over their last ten games (+8.1) and they're 9-1 in that stretch.
I've said it before but I am very unimpressed with the new-look Kings in the post-Haliburton era. Sabonis certainly improves their rebounding and interior scoring, but he does little to help them on defense where they continued to get hammered on a nightly basis. Jokic and his band of no-name warriors (I suppose some people know of Aaron Gordon and Will Barton, but how many people know much about Monte Morris or Bones Hyland?) are playing great right now and should be bigger favorites here. I like them to cover this spread and keep the good times rolling.
You'll probably notice the under pops in the model, too, and while I have really hated taking unders lately with scoring on the rise across the league, I will point out that each of those three meetings failed to go over this total with the closest final being 128-110. Something has to give with these inflated totals we are seeing and I think this one could fail to reach expectations tonight.
The Pick: Nuggets -4.5 (-110)
Bonus Pick: UNDER 239.5 (-110)
NBA Totals Betting Picks
Oklahoma City Thunder (+14.5) @ Minnesota Timberwolves (232 total)
I feel really bad for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander because the guy is playing lights out right now and his team is still getting blown out by double-digits on a nightly basis. The Thunder simply don't have many other decent NBA players to help him out and their defense is getting shredded by opposing teams every time out.
OKC is allowing 118.5 points to opponents over the last ten games and just gave up 142 to the Bucks last night. They allowed 131 to the mighty Kings last week and 138 to these T-Wolves, too.
And that's actually the second time they've allowed over 130 points to Minnesota this season. With OKC on a back-to-back and running out a bunch of youngsters, this one should get ugly tonight. It has to be demoralizing just getting pummeled every night and at some point, they simply aren't even trying to stop anyone. I'm on the T-Wolves team total here just in case OKC doesn't do enough on offense to get the game total over.
The Pick: Minnesota Team Total OVER 123.5 (-120)
Boston Celtics (-7) @ Charlotte Hornets (225 total)
Like OKC, the Hornets are on the second half of a back-to-back and just gave up a big number of their own last night as Kyrie Irving dropped 50 on them and the Nets cruised to a 132-121 win. Charlotte has the biggest +/- on game totals of any team in the league in games with no rest at a whopping +14.4 and they're simply a bad defensive basketball team at this point there's no way around it.
Charlotte has allowed over 117 points per game to opponents over their last ten and the Celtics are scoring 116 per night in that same stretch. This might be close, but with the back-to-back added in there and the Celtics playing some really good, efficient offense right now, I like them to get over their team total here, too.
The Pick: Boston Team Total OVER 116.5 (-110)
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NBA Prop Bet Picks
Ivica Zubac over 8.5 rebounds (-135) - the big man has hit this in 9 out of his last ten games and has a soft matchup against the Wizards tonight who give up boards to bigs.
Jonas Valanciunas over 29.5 points/rebounds (-125) - no Ingram again for the Pellies tonight and Jonas should be asked to do more on offense in addition to pounding the glass. Orlando gets beat up inside and I expect Jo-Val to have his way on the glass here.
I usually post all my favorite props in our RotoBaller premium slack on a nightly basis - if you're not a premium member for NBA content you can change that by signing up here!
We just added a new player prop tool that is available to our NBA premium and betting premium members, too!
The Pick: Dallas/New Orleans/Utah/Minnesota ML Parlay = (-125)
NBA Betting Picks: Team/Player 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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