NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | Dec 26

Outside of the postseason, Christmas Day is the biggest day on the NBA calendar – the day that every player wants to be a part of. In Australia, of course, it lands on Boxing Day, with the typically high-quality games scheduled kicking off bright and early and running back to back to back to back to back. The first game of the day tips off at 4am AEDT when the Knicks host the Spurs, while the last begins nearly 11 hours later, the Suns hosting the Nuggets to round out the day’s action. Check out our three best bets of the day, and Merry Christmas!

Victor Wembanyama 4+ blocks | $2.05 with PlayUp

Barring a dramatic change, Victor Wembanyama is going to win the Defensive Player of the Year award in a landslide, and his last few games have been a good representation of why. His incredible length coupled with his athleticism enable him to cover seemingly half of the offence at any one time, and he impacts opposition shots like no other player in the league. Blocks are not always a perfect representation of defensive impact, but Wemby leads the league in them for good reason, and the number of shots that are not taken because he is anywhere in the vicinity would also likely be higher than for any other player. Already he was averaging close to 4 blocks a night a few games ago, but he has been on an extraordinary streak of rejections over the last four games. It began when he had 7 of them against the Timberwolves, in the next he had 4 against the Hawks, while incredibly, in his last two games he has had 10 against the Trail Blazers and 8 against the 76ers. That’s a berserk average of over 7 per game for four games, and four in a row with at least 4 of them – a number he is at better than even money to reach again. Wemby is chasing down blocked shots like a man possessed at the minute, and on one of the biggest stages on which he has played in his short career on Christmas Day, expect him to continue that trend. Already his season average is right on the number we need for this bet to hit, but given his incredible rate of blocks in recent times, the better than even money odds available with some NBA betting sites means this looks like a great bet to start the day.

Mavericks -4.5 | $1.88 with QuestBet

It was only a few short months ago that these two teams were going head to head in the Western Conference Finals, a series that the Mavs ultimately won 4-1 – though it was closer than that scoreline would suggest. While they both came into this season with high hopes once again – and this early in the season, both still do – the two teams are heading in opposite directions at the moment. The Mavericks have been playing very well, in no small part due to Luka Doncic’s major uptick in form, winning ten of their last 12 games to climb to 4th in the Western Conference standings. The Timberwolves, meanwhile, are in freefall. A team which last year excelled due to having the best defence in the league by some margin, they have largely failed to replicate that form in the early stages of this season. Beginning a few weeks ago, however, that defensive form returned, and for a couple of weeks they were far and away the best defensive team in the league. That saw them pick up a few wins on the trot, but just as quickly as the tide appeared to have turned for them, their offence has fallen off an absolute cliff. As Anthony Edwards put it a week or so ago, there is little more to their offence than a bit of random dribbling culminating in a shot by either he or Julius Randle, and unsurprisingly that strategy is not exactly paying dividends. You can get away with an average offence when your defence is comfortably the best in the league, but while they regained that mantle for a period, they have not been nearly as stingy over the past week or so and look like a team without an identity. They have won three games on the trot by an average of more than 16 points and each by a double-figure margin, and up against a Mavericks team in good form, and on the road no less, a fourth consecutive loss looks on the card. With the line set by betting sites sitting at just 4.5 points, this looks like a good one for the Mavs to cover.

Nuggets -2.5 | $1.90 with Unibet

Speaking of teams in freefall, the Suns are not exactly firing on all cylinders at the moment. They have lost three games on the trot, the last two of which have been without Devin Booker, and their start guard will once again miss on Christmas Day. That leaves a lot of work in the very capable hands of Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, but even with that top-end talent things have not been going well of late. Their three-game losing skid started with a nine-point loss to the Pacers before they were beaten by the Pistons by eight points, but the worst of the lot came in their latest outing when they lost in the first of two consecutive games against the Nuggets by a whopping 27 points. That continued a strong run of form for the 2023 champs as they continue their charge up the Western Conference standings, with just one loss from their last six games – and that coming by just two points to the Trail Blazers, of all teams, who won with an Anfernee Simons buzzer-beater. This is a team led by the best player in the world but which has been criticised for their lack of help around Nikola Jokic, but they managed that 27-point win over the Suns without their second best player in Jamal Murray, who is questionable for the Christmas Day clash. Michael Porter Jr stepped up in his absence, while Russell Westbrook continues to remind the NBA world that he still has plenty to give in his fourth consecutive very good performance, so whether Murray plays or not the Nuggets have shown they have the pieces around Jokic to still be a good team. The same cannot, at the moment at least, be said for the Suns. This should be an exciting game to watch with plenty of high quality players on the floor, and there is no denying that the ceilings of both of these teams is high. At the moment, however, the Suns are not playing even like a playoff team, let alone a championship contender. With little separating the teams according to betting agencies, the Nuggets look like value in this one.