Scouting the schedule: Hot NBA betting trends
By Marc Lawrence
Covers.com
When the NBA settled its lockout in December the league was forced to condense a 66-game schedule into a four-month span. We examined the affect of this season’s NBA crammed schedule on the teams and their play on the court.
The results in games played through Sunday, Feb. 5 have been interesting. All results are ATS (against the spread) unless noted otherwise.
Advantage: Oddsmakers
The linemakers have done a solid job balancing the action with home teams holding a slight edge, going 186-170 ATS overall.
They have over compensated teams off back-to-back wins in their last two games, though. These squads are just 75-101 ATS this season, including 7-23 ATS when facing a foe that was upset as a favorite in its previous game.
Totally Unfair
The action on teams playing with no rest has been fairly balanced as those who played the previous day are 112-115 ATS overall.
Breaking it down, unrested teams versus rested opponents are 56-69 SU and 62-63 ATS, including 7-19 ATS when facing an opponent off back-to-back defeats.
However, when it comes to totals involving teams in back-to-backers the under players have cleaned up.
That’s confirmed by the fact that overs are just 93-130-4 ATS, including 28-66-2 ATS in a battle of two unrested opponents and a mind-blowing 8-38-2 ATS if the total in the game is 190 or greater.
In Need Of Oxygen
Matchups involving a pair of unrested foes have seen road teams taking their lumps, going 17-31 ATS.
These same tired travelers slip to 6-19 ATS when facing an unrest host off a win.
Ménage A Trois
Teams forced to play three games in three days have been moneymakers this campaign with 10-8 SU and 11-7 ATS record.
Breaking them down, home teams have delivered a glossy 10-3 ATS log while visiting teams in the third of three straight road games are just 1-4 ATS.
Teams off back-to-back losses in the back end of three games in three days are 5-0 ATS.
48 Hours
As you might expect, having the luxury of two or more days of rest has proven beneficial with these teams checking in at 37-28 ATS to date this season.
Bring them in off a loss and they improve to 21-8 ATS. Those off back-to-back losses zoom to 16-3 ATS.
And for what it’s worth, teams with two or more days of rest taking on an unrested foe are 13-7 ATS.
Chew On This
In closing here are a few other tidbits to chew on:
• favorites of more than 12 points are 17-6 ATS
• teams off a SU favorite loss are 23-7 ATS when facing an opponent off a pair of wins
• teams off back-to-back SU and ATS wins are 42-61 ATS, including 3-14 ATS if they were underdogs in both victories