What Are The NBA Standings Today
The later in the NBA regular season it is, the more and more standings are mission-critical. Once we’re in the last quarter of the year (after 60 or some games), teams and bettors alike should have their eye on the information below.
After all, NBA players are notoriously known for their “on-off switch” and with playoff seeding up for grabs late in the year, the mode is definitely flipped to on. In the same token, teams well out of playoff contention are more likely to mail it in at the season’s end.
Though, we’d advise paying closer attention to the conference standings than divisional. In the end, the eight teams with the best record inside a conference — regardless of division standing — will earn a playoff spot. Either way, use the info below to spot NBA betting trends.
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NBA Betting Advice
At the end of the day, making money is the goal of every single bettor. How they go about hitting that goal differs from player to player — finding value bets, wagering live, throwing up Hail Mary's with a 10-leg parlay, etc. There's no "right" or "wrong" answer, though, our NBA betting advice isn't for longshot parlays.
Years worth of wagering experience later, we've come up with three principles that we like to follow before making an NBA sports bet. Ultimately, it's on you to create similar principles that suit your NBA betting strategy. So use ours as a compass more than anything, but here they are:
NBA Betting Statistics: Revenge Of The Nerds
Analytics is prevalent throughout the NBA. It's driving the decision-making by certain front office personnel. NBA betting statistics are used by bookies to create the very lines you're choosing between. And it should be a key component of your NBA betting system.
The keyword in the last sentence is "should" by the way. Should because we see far too many bettors overlooking analytics when making picks. If you really think you can consistently beat bookies and their advanced algorithms without looking at data, then you have another thing coming your way.
No, you don't need to create a computer model of your own to make NBA picks — though, that wouldn't be a bad idea if you're capable — but you still need to crunch some numbers beforehand. Thankfully, an advanced analytics revolution has swept through the NBA over the last decade and that data is easily accessible online.
The website Basketball Reference is a haven for such data. Getting into the nitty-gritty of NBA betting stats is an article of its own, but learn how to interpret these metrics for long-term betting success. A complete understanding won't happen overnight, but in due time, you'll have a good grasp of the must-know numbers.
Look Out For Tired Legs
Ok, if there's one thing that won't show up on any box score or advanced metric sheet, it's fatigue. For better or worse, "load management" has become a word synonymous with the NBA. For those unfamiliar with the saying, it refers to a player, usually star-caliber one, sitting out a game purely for rest reasons.
No matter what, every NBA team and player will fall victim to fatigue over the course of an 82-game season. That's a given, but here are a few tried-and-true examples that you should look out for.
One is during the second game of a back-to-back. No matter how athletic NBA players are, playing consecutive 48-minute games does the human body no favors.
The second to watch out for is on the final leg of a multiple-game road trip. These are built into each schedule, and for some, it's earmarked around a particular event (e.g. the rodeo in San Antonio or the Grammys in Los Angeles). Sleepwalking is all too common by the end of extended trips, especially if it's cross-country.
A Game Of Runs Fits In-Play Betting Perfectly
Raise your hand if you heard basketball is a "game of runs?" It's become a cliche of sorts, but an accurate one at that.
Basketball is indeed a streaky game — teams and players get hot, then get cold, then hot again, rinse, and repeat. That sort of action lends itself extremely well to in-play betting. And for bettors, this is where you can find value.
Let's say the Lakers and Kings are squaring off. Perhaps Los Angeles is the far superior team and consequently, the overwhelming favorites pregame. You could always wait for live betting and hope to bring down its moneyline and/or spread there.
Maybe the Lakers, feeling a tad too overconfident, look past the Kings at first and fall into a large first-quarter deficit. Suddenly, its betting lines have fallen to a more respectable number that offers more bang for your buck. You bet that and eventually, the Lakers flip that "switch" we mentioned before and mount a furious comeback to win your wager.
Obviously, an outcome like that is far from a guarantee. You do run the risk of Los Angeles simply having an off night and never rallying back. Nonetheless, you'll have these types of Vegas bets NBA regularly when in-play wagering.
Pay close enough attention and you'll eventually realize which NBA teams are prone to cold starts, second-half outbursts, and late-game comebacks. Leverage those betting trends NBA to rack up wins while live betting.
That concludes our NBA betting help. But like we said, these aren't the end-all, be-all rules by any means. There's dozen more NBA betting strategies, but these three, in particular, are ones we've learned to take advantage of when the time is right.
Now it is the time to have a look below at the top sportsbooks where you can wager NBA bets online. All we ask is just to keep this NBA betting guide top of mind!
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