NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | Jan 7

Nine games will take place across the NBA on Tuesday, giving us ample opportunity to find a bit of value of the course of the day. Things kick off at 11am AEDT with an intriguing game between the Suns and the Sixers, while other major matchups will see the Magic face the Knicks, the Timberwolves host the Clippers and the Grizzlies take on the Clippers in Memphis. Our bets for today involve (we hope!) plenty of value, with each leg coming in at $2.40 or better, two of which focus on game results and the other of which is a player prop. Take a look at our reasoning below.

Bucks 10+ @ $2.40 with QuestBet

The Bucks are in some awful form at the moment, having dropped four of their last five games – two against the Nets, and the other two against the Bulls and the Trail Blazers. They are not exactly high-quality opponents, particularly Brooklyn and Chicago, and the last two results were especially disappointing given the Bucks had all of their stars out on the court. But while this team has underperformed pretty consistently over the last season and a half, they are still very talented and boast one of the top handful of players in the league in Giannis Antetokounmpo, and prior to this recent run of poor form had started to establish themselves as the potential top four seed in the Eastern Conference that their talent really suggests that they should be. The Raptors, meanwhile, are on a bad run of results themselves, but it’s not just poor form that’s seen them consistently losing. Unlike the Bucks, they actually suck, and their recent run of form is not all that different to what they have displayed all season, nor what they will continue to display for the rest of it. They are 8-27 on the season, and have been on the receiving end of a few humiliating defeats of late. They’ve won just once in over a month, and while they got to within ten points of the Magic in their last game (albeit barely), prior to that their losses had been by 54 points to the Celtics, 29 points to the Hawks, 29 points to the Grizzlies and 14 points to the Knicks. Big losses are commonplace for this Raptors team, and the Bucks are very capable of handing out hefty losses to bad teams. Despite that, betting sites have set the line for this game at a relatively low 6.5 points. Granted the Bucks have question marks over the availability of a couple of their stars, but both Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton are viewed as more likely than not to play, and particularly if Giannis does this could be a really big win for the Bucks to get them back on track. We’re going with an 11+ point win for a bit of value, but if you wanted to go beyond that at 15 or even 20 at long odds, I wouldn’t try to talk you out of it.

Zach LaVine to score 30+ points @ $3.75 with PlayUp

Zach LaVine is quietly going about having a really good season for the Bulls. The dynamic 29-year-old is only averaging 22.7 points per game – his second lowest average in the past seven years – but he is doing so on 50.8% shooting from the field and 44.6% shooting from three-point range, both of which are the highest numbers of his career. But as has long been a criticism of the Bulls guard, his performance does wax and wane quite significantly on a nightly basis. By and large he has been in good form of late, but his past ten games have been a prime example of feast or famine – which invariably opens the door for some good value bets. Over his past ten games he is averaging 25.6 points, but in every single one of them he has either scored 15 points or less, or 30 points or more, never really ending a game with anything near his actual average for the season or that period. His points line set by betting agencies, of course, is right around those averages, but given he has either been getting nowhere near it or flying past it of late, there is some good value in his ‘to score x points’ markets. During that aforementioned ten-game stretch, LaVine has scored 30 points six times. His odds to do it in this one, however, at close to $4 suggest he is nearer to a one in four chance of getting there. Those odds sound pretty juicy to me. Of course, given his propensity for a bad game there is certainly the chance that LaVine comes out and scores 12 points and gets nowhere near this mark, but if he is on – as he has been more often than not for a number of weeks now – there is a good chance that he hits the 30-point mark once again.

Kings 7+ @ $2.50 with Unibet

Both the Heat and the Kings have had a compelling couple of weeks, and at this point in time, their on-court performance suggests that they are dealing with their off-field issues very differently. The Kings, of course, spectacularly fired highly-rated coach Mike Brown just after Christmas in the wake of a disappointing loss to the Pistons, much to the chagrin of virtually the entire NBA community. However, all that tumult appears to have awoken something in what is a pretty decent team on paper. After losing to the Lakers in their first game since Brown was fired, they have won four on the trot in impressive fashion, beating in that time the Mavericks, Sixers, Grizzlies and Warriors – the latter of which came by a whopping 30 points. Fox missed that game, the first leg of a back-to-back of which this game will be the second, and his status for this game is unclear. But whether he plays or not, the Kings are in strong form, with the move of Malik Monk from the bench to the starting lineup providing them with another weapon in a very capable offensive starting five. The Heat, meanwhile, are in an off-court position they are pretty unfamiliar with. Perhaps the most stable and well-run organisation in the league, they have been the latest victim of Jimmy Butler’s ire, with their (former) star wing openly expressing his unhappiness with the franchise after a disappointing loss to the Pacers a couple of games ago, comments which followed weeks of speculation about his future. The Heat, and particularly Pat Riley, are not one to bow to the demands of an individual, and they responded to Butler’s insolence by suspending him for seven games. Clearly all of that furore has taken its toll on the team, because they came out in the first game following it all and lost by 36 points to one of the worst teams in the league in the Jazz. This is a proud team and one which won’t likely remain down for long, but for the time being at least there are clearly plenty of problems affecting the team, not to mention the fact that they are now down one of their best players. With the Kings in some really good form and the Heat in freefall, the 3.5-point line set by NBA betting sites doesn’t look nearly high enough. For a bit of extra value to round out the day, we’re jumping on the Kings to do this a little more comfortably and win by seven points or more.