NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | Nov 1

Friday will see four games taking place across the NBA, and though it’s certainly not the best slate we will see this season, there are a couple of games which should provide plenty of talking points. The Grizzlies and the Bucks kick things off in Memphis in an intriguing battle between two teams with reasonably high aspirations but who have started the season in relatively average fashion. The Rockets also head to Dallas for what should be an intriguing battle between last year’s Western Conference winners and a team trying to insert themselves into the upper echelon of teams in the West. Below, we take a look at the three best bets we’ve found for the day’s action.

Ja Morant to record a double-double | $3.80 with PlayUp

After a tumultuous year or so, Ja Morant entered the 2024-25 with a full pre-season behind him. Having played just 9 games last season he was always likely to need a bit of time to recapture his best, and to an extent that appears to be the case, with only 19.1 points per game on 42.1% shooting coming from his first four games of the season. But Morant has been creating for his teammates as well as usual, recording three double-doubles in those games – each of them coming from points and assists. In the past Morant has averaged around 8 or so assists per game and is within reach of a double-double most nights, and with his efficiency from the field down to start off this season he appears even more inclined to look to create for teammates. That means that at nearly $4 to record a double-double – something he has done in 75% of games this season so far – he looks like great value to do so. Of course, the sample size so far this season is small, and he clearly won’t have double-doubles in 75% of his games throughout the course of the season. But the odds look longer than they should be, particularly when you consider that there is also the off-chance he picks up 10 rebounds if he doesn’t get there with assists – he had 8 of them against the Nets just yesterday. Morant is realistically more unlikely than not to pick up a double-double in this game, but not by all that much, and he certainly seems like a better than 4:1 chance to get there. These odds should be closer to $2.50 or so in my view, so at $3.80 with PlayUp this market looks like really good value.

Jalen Green over 23.5 points | $1.88 with Unibet

Jalen Green’s numbers last season – his third in the NBA – were similar to those in his second, with a notable lack of efficiency from the field, but those overall numbers didn’t tell the full story. He put together an excellent run of form in the back half of the season during which his limitless potential was plain to see, and now in his fourth year in the league, he appears ready to take a big step forward. He has started this season impressively – though he has remained reasonably inefficient from the field, he is at a career-high 43.2% and he’s doing that while taking more shots than usual – and obviously, as a result, scoring more than he ever has. Through the Rockets’ first four games he is averaging 28.8 points per game, having scored 28, 22, 29, and in his last outing, 36. Green may not maintain those numbers all season but he is very capable of averaging close to 30 points per game once his game comes together, and it appears to be on the way to doing that. Whether that happens this season remains to be seen, but he will likely average more than the career-high 22.1 points per game that he managed in season two in the big league. NBA betting sites, however, have not yet adjusted – at least not enough in my view. His points line is set at just 23.5, higher than what he has ever averaged before, but only just, and substantially lower than what he has averaged so far this season. Green looks likely to take 20+ shots most nights based on what we have seen so far this season, and even with relatively average efficiency that should be enough to get him past that points line.

Suns -4.5 | $1.85 with QuestBet

In their second full season with their big three of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, the Suns should be expecting to perform a lot better in 2024-25 than they did last season, and they are off to a solid start with three wins from their first four games. The Clippers, meanwhile, are in no-man’s land. With Paul George now gone, they are not good enough to compete at the top of the Western Conference, even if Kawhi Leonard is fit and healthy – which, unsurprisingly, he is not. With Leonard out, the Clippers are relying on an aging James Harden and Norm Powell to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. They have managed to pick up a couple of wins early in the season, one of them, impressively, against the Nuggets, but just yesterday they went down to the Trail Blazers of all teams. This will be the second leg of a back to back, and one which they started with a loss to one of the worst teams in the league. Phoenix, meanwhile, will have had a couple of days’ rest since beating the Lakers on Tuesday. Already these two teams have met once this year, in their season-opener, and though the Suns needed overtime to ultimately win that one by three points, they are much, much more than a 4.5-point better side than the Leonard-less Clippers. They should be looking to win this game by a double-figure margin, particularly with the Clippers on the second leg of a back to back, and should be able to sail past the line set by betting sites.