NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | Dec 6

Eight games will take place across the NBA on Friday, a day which is bookended by a couple of mouth-watering matchups. At 11am AEDT, the Cavaliers, currently sitting at 19-3, host Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets, while a few hours later the Warriors – currently on a slide after a hot start to the season – take on the plucky young Rockets. The first of those kicks off our day of betting, while elsewhere we focus on a couple of less high quality matchups which still look to be presenting some pretty decent value. Take a look at our three best bets for the day’s games below.

Cavaliers -3.5 | $1.90 with PlayUp

This is the most enticing matchup of the day, with two genuine championship contenders going toe to toe when the Cavs host the Nuggets. Cleveland has been a bolter this season, winning 19 of their first 22 games to give themselves the best record in the league over a quarter of the way into the season. The Nuggets, meanwhile, have not had everything go their way by any means and have traded wins for losses for their past eight games, but any side with the best player in the world in Nikola Jokic running the show is always going to be a threat later in the season. Betting agencies have pitted this one as a close game and understandably so, but while both teams have championship aspirations there is no doubting that the Cavaliers are the better side at the moment. They are running on all cylinders as they have been since their first game of the year, while the Nuggets – understandably given they have been at the top for a few seasons now – are still just feeling their way into things. And importantly, the Cavs have been close to unstoppable at home. They have won 12 of their 13 games in Cleveland, with just a single one of those victories coming by less than the 3.5-point line set for that game – that being when they beat the Bucks by two points at the beginning of November. This should be a high quality game and the Nuggets are certainly good enough to match it with the Cavs – come season’s end they may well be the better team. But for the time being, the Cavaliers are outperforming them by some margin, and on their home floor should be able to get this job done, most likely by more than the very small handicap given to them by the bookies.

Mavericks -10.5 | $1.89 with QuestBet

The Wizards were never going to be good this season, but even they must be impressed with the tanking performance they have displayed so far in 2024-25. With two rookies and a second-year player in their starting lineup, they don’t really have the capacity to compete with, well, most teams in the NBA, and 15 consecutive losses is testament to that. And not only have they been losing, but they have been getting pumped more often than not. Incredibly, in only one of those games have they lost by a single figure margin – and that was by nine points! In their last outing they went down by 31 points to the Cavaliers, while three games ago they lost by 25 to the Clippers and the game before that by 19 to the Bulls. Despite all that, betting sites have set the line for this game at just 10.5 points. If the Wizards were to cover that, it would be their third best performance since October. The Mavericks, meanwhile, have won five games on the trot, and have recently seen Kyrie Irving return to the court to join Luka Doncic in perhaps the most talented backcourt in the NBA. In that five-game stretch they have knocked a Grizzlies team which had won six games in a row, the impressive Knicks, and a plucky Hawks team, so the Wizards are not exactly likely to pose a threat. Given Washington has been losing by such hefty margins to basically everyone they play against, it is hard to imagine that last season’s Western Conference champion, on the back of five consecutive wins, is going to have any trouble disposing of them very easily as well. This isn’t a small line, but for the Wizards up against an in-form Mavs outfit, it won’t likely be enough.

Spurs -2.0 | $1.90 with Unibet

The Spurs have been a lot better than the Bulls this season, but the line set by NBA betting sites would have you believe they are a lot closer to one another than they actually are. While Chicago sits 8th in the Eastern Conference and San Antonio is down in 10th in the West, the Spurs have a substantially better record (11-10 compared to 9-13), and have obviously played a higher proportion of their game against Western Conference teams. The Bulls, meanwhile, have benefited from beating up on the plethora of very average to downright terrible teams in the East, with their last four wins coming against the Nets, Wizards, Pistons and Hawks. The Spurs, meanwhile, have been going toe to toe with some very good Western Conference sides, in the last couple of weeks notching up wins against the Kings, Warriors, and most impressively, the Thunder. The difference between the two sides shows in their net rating; the Spurs are right around league average at -0.6, but as mentioned that’s been in a tougher fixture than what the Bulls have endured. The Bulls, meanwhile, even against more Eastern Conference teams, are in 23rd in the league with a net rating of -4.1. What’s more, the Spurs have been really good at home, boasting an 8-4 record in San Antonio and a net rating of 3.9. They are clearly a better side than the Bulls at the best of time, and that difference is only exaggerated on the Spurs home floor. They should be a relatively comfortable favourite in this game, and the 2.0 point line looks like an easy cover for them.