NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | Nov 22

Just eight teams will take to the court across the NBA on Friday, Australia time, kicking off with the Hornets hosting the Pistons in a bonafide blockbuster (…) and concluding with a game which should actually be relatively interesting when the Magic head to Los Angeles to take on the Lakers. Sandwiched in between, the Timberwolves take on the Raptors and the Spurs face the Jazz, so it’s safe to say most of the interest of the league will be centred on the last game of the day. So too will the last of our bets, but we’ve got a couple to make the earlier ones a little more interesting, too. Check them out below.

Cade Cunningham to record a triple double | $6.50 with PlayUp

The Pistons and Hornets both have a few fun young players, but on the whole this is a matchup which won’t spark a whole lot of interest around the league. But we’re going to jazz things up a little with a long odds play on Cade Cunningham that we think has a much better chance of hitting than the $6.50 odds offered by some NBA betting sites. Cunningham averages 23.2 points per game, so we can assume he will get to double figures there. As for assists, he is averaging 8.8 for the year but for an extended period of time now has been very consistently getting right around 10 or so. In fact, in his last nine games he has only fell short of 10 assists on two occasions, and both of those times he had 9. That would suggest there is a very good chance he will get there on assists, which leaves us with rebounds. This is the category most likely to get in the way of this hitting, with Cunningham averaging 7.2 boards per game this season. But four times in his last nine games, he has had at least 10 of them, and each of those times he had at least 10 dimes too to get him to a triple-double. There is no denying that players know their stats and Cunningham is clearly inclined to get those extra couple of boards once a triple-double is in sight, which we like. That means that he is essentially on our side! Worst case Cunningham should give this a shake, and having recorded a triple double in four of his last nine games, $6.50 seems like a steal for this market.

Jakob Poeltl to have 30+ points + rebounds | $2.10 with Unibet

What the hell is going with Jakob Poeltl!? Very much an average big man for nearly ten seasons in the NBA, he has turned into Shaquille O’Neale over the past three games. Don’t expect it to last forever, but he is riding a wave of confidence which makes him a great overs bet at the moment, particularly with betting sites having not adjusted his odds hugely from his overall season averages. In his last three games, Poeltl has picked up 25 points and 18 rebounds, 35 points and 12 rebounds, and then 30 points and 15 rebounds for a very nicely rounded averaged of 30 and 15 in that time. There would be good reason to go for a little more value here and bank on him to get 25 or 30+ points at long odds, but the issue is that he will be coming up against four-time Defensive Player of the Year in Rudy Gobert. That does not preclude him from having another good game, but it does add a bit more justification to playing it safe – and importantly, hedging our bets by including both points and rebounds, each of which he has been going well over his season averages over this three-game stretch. On the season Poeltl averages 17.9 points and 11.1 rebounds, so slightly better than even money odds to get 30 of them combined is right on his those numbers. But having totalled 43, 47 and 45 in this combo category over the past three games, there is plenty of room for him to regress quite a lot and still get to the number we need. If you want to take more risk then there is certainly good reason to, but we are going to just stick to 30 after a long odds bet on Cunningham to start the day.

Under 217.5 total match points | $1.88 with QuestBet

The Magic have been a relatively defensively orientated team for a while now, but they are taking it to a new level in recent games. Without Paolo Banchero their offence has been centred largely around Franz Wagner, who has done a great job, but they still play at a slow pace and are a team whose identity comes more from their work at the defensive end of the floor. Prior to yesterday’s loss to the Clippers, they had won six games in a row, and incredibly, none of the teams that they beat had scored triple figures. Their opposition were averaging just 93 points in that time, while the Magic themselves have been averaging 108.5. That is an average match total of a very low 201.5 points in that time, with the highest scoring game yielding just 215 points. Their trend of conceding under 100 points finished against the Clippers on Thursday, but only just. The Clippers put up 104 in that game, but with the Magic scoring just 93 themselves that one again fell well below the points total line set by betting agencies for Friday’s game against the Lakers, making it seven consecutive games in which the Magic have gone under that 217.5 total – and often by plenty. The Lakers have been going over it more often than not, but they are not going to have much control over the fact that the Magic will play really slow in this game, particularly on the second leg of a back to back. With a lot fewer possessions, these teams will need to be really efficient to hit this over/under total. Regardless of what the Lakers have been doing, the fact that the Magic have gone under this total, generally by a lot, for seven consecutive games, is a great endorsement for the under.