I wanted to do a quick 3 game look at some plays yesterday. I originally had around 7 games picked out but due to the amount of time it was taking I decided to narrow it down to 3 games. I'll continue to tweak and write up explainer articles going forward so you can get a better understand of what stats and indicators are jumping out. Right now I'm seeing the biggest difference come in rebounding, turnovers, blocks and steals. So let's take a look!
Here is a good example of using the new ON/OFF feature for sports betting. Luka and Porzingis was ruled out yesterday and Porzingis didn't have a huge effect so I'm using the numbers for Luka. You can see by choosing Luka Doncic in the drop down menu it shows the total average of 232.8 when he is ON the court and when he is OFF it drops down to 224.4. They also play at a 97.5 pace when he is off the floor. If you look at the top left of the cheatsheet you can see the Vegas Total of 239 was quickly dropping to 235.5 and with only 38% of the bets on the under those were either large bets or sharp betters. We had the popup for "Sharps hitting the under" also in the notifications. This game ended with a 218 score going well below the total. The ON/OFF feature is a great tool when a stud player is off the floor to determine if it will affect the line, pace or total points.
This game surprised me when I went back to look at the stats. We had CLE losing by 3 as a +12 point dog. I like to go back and see the stats to see if we missed something or if a team was just shooting at a high %, turnover margin and rebounding margin. So here you can see that both teams are averaging around 32-33% on their 3P% per game and while CLE stayed in that range at 36.1% MIA got hot at 47.5% which account for 6 more 3's which is +18 points. CLE actually ended up +11 in total rebounds and they were great on the offensive boards winning 11-4. In the bottom row of the cheatsheet you can see MIA had a +5.6 turnover margin over L3 and they ended up +9 and also dominated blocks and steals 20-10. I still think CLE was a decent play based on stats.
This was a fun game to go back and look at. I always start at the middle row and look athe total rebounds and offensive rebounds ALLOWED. You can see that UTAH just dominates this category. However, the 3 point numbers can trump the rebounding so that is the 2nd place I look to make sure there isn't a heavy lean -or- a highlighted area below which you can see in the top row. This is showing HOU is taking 10.6 more 3P attempts per game over the L3 on average. Now in a single game you can expect this to be in a range of 5-15 more 3P attempts for the game. You can see on the stat recap that HOU took 48 3P attempts vs. only 31 for Utah for a +17 advantage. Now we expected Utah to dominate the glass and they had the advantage of 46-42 but that is not as great as I thought it would be. However, the main factor here came in the turnovers, blocks and steals. On the cheatsheet you can see Houston had the advantages across the board with +5 in turnovers per game over the L3, 2.3 more blocks per game and 2.5 more steals per game. So we can likely expect a range in a single game of 2-6 for each category because that 2.3 and 2.5 is an average. You can see they won blocks 5-2 and steals 9-1 for a total 14-3 edge and were +3 in turnovers.
Recap of what to look for on the NBA Sports Betting CheatSheet:
1. Don't go blindly by the AVG projected score at the top. I don't always take the side we have picked, these are just stat models and don't account for injuries, etc.
2. Look at the middle row for rebounds allowed and offensive boards allowed. I love to see a team with a big advantage here and that is why I made it in a % advantage.
3. Look at any highlighted difference on the 3 rows, if there is a significant difference it will highlight for you so you can quickly look at it.
4. Pay attention to 3 point differences as this can account for a lot of points.
5. Pay attention to turnovers, blocks and steals because these turn into points!
Go back and see how the game played out. You can look at NBA.com and look under the stats or go to Sportstacular on your phone. Look to see if one team was shooting hot and had a higher % than what they normally have, did the team you projected to dominate the boards win in total rebounds and offensive boards? Did the team you think would have the least amount of turnovers take that category? If we can figure out who is taking the most categories and watching the pace and efficiency numbers we can start to project game flows and sleeper teams.
I will also look back at breakdowns and I am going to make some slight tweaks this next week for the turnovers/blocks/steals and boards.
Thank you for reading and good luck!
Haze