Is home court advantage that important in the NBA?

The answer to this question, as with a lot of questions asked about making NBA picks, is that it depends. In some arenas and some situations, home court is very important. In other situations, it isn’t so important. This underlies the idea that when making NBA picks, your goal has to be taking every single game into account on its own merit. You don’t want to draw overarching conclusions using a trend that might not apply.  Continue Reading…

What stats matter in the NBA?

The NBA is not like baseball, where stats play such a huge role. In the NBA, the games are more fluid and it becomes harder to assign value to each individual event. But you still need to try and use stats as you make your NBA picks. You just have to know which stats are most important and which stats don’t truly matter. When you figure this out, you will be ahead of the curve and ahead of the marketplace, which is the most important thing. In the NBA, you need to be looking for stats that most closely correlate to winning.  Continue Reading…

NBA Skill Trends to Note

As you make your NBA picks this year, one thing that you will want to do is keep your eye on the skill trends. What is happening with the league? What changes are taking place? This will help you know which teams are about to emerge and how games are going to play out. One of the trends that you have to note right now is that teams are becoming more athletic. Players are better able to run. They are better able to play an up and down kind of style. This trend has coincided with worse shooting in the NBA, too. As you make your NBA picks, factor this information into the equation.  Continue Reading…

When the basketball betting public goes against a good team

There was a situation in this NBA season. The public was all over the team that was playing against the Miami Heat. Imagine that! The public went against the team that is most publicly backed. When this happens, you need to take notice. In these kinds of situations, your NBA picks are better off going against the public. When the public is jumping on a side that is not a top team, you can find great value.  Continue Reading…

NBA picks on the All-Star game

Ok, so the All-Star game is about to come on. You want to have some NBA picks on it because you crave the action. But what in the world do you do? The line is weird. The total is outrageous. You never know how they are going to show up. Can you make money betting on the NBA All-Star game? Can you? Well that really depends upon the situation. In some years, there might be value. But it is a hard proposition. You have to really rely upon chance in order to make picks on the All-Star game. There is so much uncertainty that you are putting out a blind wager more times than not.  Continue Reading…

Fouling in the NBA

If you have been betting on college basketball, then you can sometimes get in trouble betting the NBA. One reason is because you will think that college basketball principles apply. You will think that at the end of the game, teams are going to keep fouling in the NBA to push up the score. This doesn’t happen, though. In the NBA, it is not at all weird for a team to be up by 4 with a couple of seconds to go and have the other team not foul. This would never happen in college. Understanding late game fouling is an essential.  Continue Reading…

Good three point teams against teams with poor effort

One of the things that you will see in the NBA season is that some teams do not provide premium effort every time out. Though you would think that “professionals” would be able to do a better job, many teams just mail it in at various points in the season. This hurts them against all opponents. But it hurts them more against teams that can really shoot the three pointer. Why is this the case? It is because of an NBA trend that NBA bettors need to take seriously. Today, teams are running toward the three point line more often than not.
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How important is home court  when it comes to making NBA picks? 

So you want to make NBA bets? Well that’s good, and now there are some things you need to know. One thing is how to value home court. In college basketball, people have a pretty good understanding of what home court is all about. They know that you can usually count on a four point boost from home court. Some courts provide more than this. It is a little bit more difficult in the NBA. This is because older teams handle the road better and some home courts are much better than others. So how much is it worth in the NBA? Continue Reading…

Assessing Conference Strength

When you make NBA picks, one thing that you might want to think about is how conference strength plays into the equation. If you are going to compare teams, then you have to have a reasonable basis for doing so. This is a lot easier when you assess conference strength properly. So is the west still the best? Has anything changed in the NBA in regard to conference strength? The answer for right now is that the west is probably deeper, but you have to be careful when trying to slap any permanent answer onto this question.  Continue Reading…

The tail end of NBA road trips 

As you go through the NBA season, one thing you might start to look at is situational handicapping. When it comes to making NBA picks, many people look for opportunities where one team is going to be playing its best, while the other team is not. So one spot that you need to look for in NBA betting is the end of a long road trip. Most people understand how fatigue works. They know that a team is going to play poorly on the back end of a bunch of games in a row. But this is already priced into the line. So you need to look beyond this if you are going to have any sort of success with NBA handicapping.  Continue Reading…