Basketball ranks amongst the most common sports globally with millions of fans all over the world enjoying and supporting the sport annually. Consequently, the sport is among the best to bet on with bookies providing a vast selection of markets and wagering types for punters to find the most profitable chances. Even if the NFL is still the top sport among punters in North America, the NBA is steadily growing its popularity.
Throughout the past six decades, the NBA league has tremendously evolved to 30 teams across the North American region. It has attracted among the best players from not only America but also players from across the globe. Every team plays 82 games in a regular-season (41 home games and 41 away games). With such a large number of games played within 7 months, punters have many chances to win money daily.
In this guide, we show you smarter ways of placing your bets in basketball towards finding enough value opportunities. However, the modern digital world has beneficial technologies that provide more informed and efficient betting information to help you make the best decisions towards winning more. For instance, you’ll find the most updated odds comparisons using this link: bettingmetrics.com/odds, valuable tips for NBA among other basketball leagues, and reliable sportsbook bonuses and free bets from Bettingmetrics.
Keep Your Emotions Out of the Book
The majority of amateur gamblers have a poor habit of betting on their favourite teams to win. Truthfully, the NBA has a few historically proven champions but we can all agree that the team dynamics and abilities shift regularly. You can’t make the most of these changes if you’re only banking for your favourite team.
Therefore, the first initiative towards acing the betting sector is to use your head and not your heart. You have to let go of the memories of your favourite team posters hanging on the wall while growing up or even the jersey with your favourite team logo. Betting needs you to think logically which will need you to use your brain and not your emotions.
Make Yourself Familiar with Teams’ History
According to George Santayana, “Those who can’t learn from history are doomed to lose a handful of cash”. Therefore, before putting your hard-earned money to risk, take a pause and revisit to see how teams have performed during past one-on-one matches. As such, you should look through defensive and offensive analytics, one-on-one matches, standings, and stats leaderboards.
However, be cautious about how far back you look because statistics change yearly and other times significantly. For instance, how the Lakers performed in the 2015-16 season has little to no impact on how they’ll play in the current season.
Don’t ignore the influence of small and major personnel changes adding up over the seasons as these significantly change the squad and team dynamics.
Take Note of the Schedule
Did you know that teams competing in the second match of a back-to-back competition manage to win only 44% of the time? The NBA strives to reduce the effects of squad fatigue by minimizing the number of back-to-back matches and removing stretches of four matches in five nights. Nonetheless, a season’s 82-match calendar remains a serious workout and different teams will average 14.4 back-to-backs from October through to April.
According to statistics, a team’s average rating reduces by 2.21 points for every 100 possessions in the 2nd match of back-to-back games. Simply, these teams are regarded as less productive on defence and offence during such matches. Therefore, having a team’s calendar at your fingertips before striking that bet is necessary.
Home Court Advantage
Most teams surely prefer home matches and it might surprise you just how vital the home-arena advantage is. As per a survey conducted by ESPN, 61.2% of all NBA matches have been triumphed by the home team from 1975. Even if recent studies insinuate that the number is reducing, competing at the home-court still thrives to be a mega advantage.
As such, this is a crucial factor for punters to consider. But, it doesn’t mean that you should always automatically wager for the home team to win. Instead, it implies that you should uphold extreme caution against the urge to wager a lot of cash on an away team.
Know the Scoring and Pace Factor
The pace factor is the approximate number of possessions a team will have every 48 minutes. The NBA usually tracks the pace factor. In typical scenarios, a fast pace team tends to have more turnovers and inconsistent shots. The team scoring, on the other hand, is the total points that a team scores in every game and includes both the overtime and regulation points.
Before placing any over and under odds when betting for a game, those two analytics should be your crucial lead. By examining both of the statistics keenly, you’ll realise that the high-scorers don’t automatically possess the highest pace factor and vice versa.
Therefore, when conducting side-by-side contrast to find the teams that thrive at both and see match-ups between two fast-paced, structured offences, then you need to consider wagering the “over”. It should, however, not be automatic as bookies also know the same info and might increase the total extra for such games.
Keep Record of Your Betting Results
Surely, everyone can win a wager or two but it takes greatness to become a successful bettor Assuming that that is your ultimate goal, then you should consider systemic record-keeping of all your bets. Think about and actualize keeping track of the date, bookmaker, bet, odds, final score, and your net wins or losses. Also, include your observations and understandings from the action.
Keeping records will help you strategise while making more well-thought about decisions. Further, it will help you keep up with your expenditure on betting and minimize going out of your pocket’s reach. In the long run, you’ll realise the fruits of performing informed research on each of your bets.
Final Thoughts
Even if basketball as a sport is pretty straightforward, the betting strategies are very many that they could sometimes be somehow confusing. Other basketball strategies include:
- Paying close attention to grudge games and geography.
- Studying game reports such as injuries, coaching tendencies, among others.
- Shopping around for the top odds.
- Watching out for moving lines.
- Keeping an eye out for the team lineups
The aforementioned strategies are meant to be your guide into creating a piece of your ultimate individual strategy. Therefore, don’t be too blind to use only one strategy while picking your bets. Instead, use them as an extensive and interrelating wider tactic to defeat the bookies.
