NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | Apr 17

The first night of this season’s NBA Play-In Tournament saw the Warriors and Magic secure the 7th seed in their respective Conferences. Now, it’s time for a couple of teams to be eliminated. On day 2 of the tournament, the teams which finished 9th and 10th in each Conference will go head-to-head, with the Bulls hosting the Heat in the first game before the Mavericks head to Sacramento to take on the Kings immediately after. Below, we take a look at our three best bets for the day’s action.

Bulls to win at $1.87 with QuestBet

From a pure win/loss perspective, little separate the Heat and the Bulls over the course of the 82-game regular season, with the Bulls ending it with 39 wins and Miami just a couple back with 37. But while the Heat have had plenty of on-court issues over the past couple of months, the Bulls have been far, far better since the All-Star break. They headed into that break with a record of 22-33, but since then have won 17 games and lost just ten, boasting a solid net rating of +4.8 in that time. Trading Zach LaVine has opened the door for a couple of others to take significant strides forward, with Josh Giddey the most notable of those. As the team’s lead ball-handler he has reminded everyone why he was taken with the sixth pick in the NBA draft just a couple of years ago, while Coby White has also been playing very well, Matas Buzelis has grown rapidly in his first season in the league, and plenty of others are playing key roles. The Bulls are not exactly going to be challenging for this season’s title, but they have been a substantially better than .500 team for some time now – something that the Heat have not. While Miami might look like a better team on paper with All-Star calibre players in Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro leading the way, they have not played like it for most of the season. The Bulls have been the far better of these two teams for some time now, and particularly with this game being played on their home court, the betting sites are not giving them enough credit. They should be four or five-point favourites in this game, and at nearly even money to win outright they look like solid value to keep their season alive.

Josh Giddey to record a triple-double at $2.90 with PlayUp

As touched on above, Josh Giddey has been a key factor in the Bulls’ post All-Star break resurgence. After a relatively quiet first few months in his new colours, he was handed the keys to the Bulls’ offence upon LaVine’s departure and has excelled ever since. Since the All-Star break, Giddey has played 19 games and put up absolutely elite numbers in that time, averaging 21.2 points (on 50% shooting from the floor and 45.7% from three, no less) as well as 10.7 rebounds and 9.3 assists – numbers that very few players in the league would be capable of putting up. Given that he is averaging a near triple-double in that time, it is no surprise that he has recorded plenty of them, and of late has been at worst going very close to picking one up every single night. Giddey missed a couple of games here and there late in the season, but in the last seven games he has suited up in he has picked up three triple-doubles, and been within a couple of rebounds or assists in three others. He will have no problem getting to a double-figure points tally – from a rebounding perspective he has got there in each of his last three games and as mentioned averages nearly 11 since the All-Star break, while assist-wise he has hit double figures in four of his last five games. At the very worst, Giddey seems likely to go super close to picking up a triple-double in this one, and with his team’s season on the line it probably boosts his chances even further given they will likely want the ball in his hands as often as possible. He is closer to a 50/50 chance than the nearly $3 on offer with NBA betting sites like PlayUp, and this looks like one of the better value bets of the day.

Dereck Lively II under 6.5 points at $2.05 with Unibet

The Mavericks have an interesting situation with their big men. Having seemingly put their faith in the development of Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II as their rotating centres, they went and brought in Anthony Davis, giving them a big of a backlog of bigs. They are happy to play Davis at the four at times – a position which he prefers despite the fact that virtually everyone in the NBA world has long decided he is better at the five – but the minutes available for Gafford and Lively II are still significantly impacted by his presence. Recently, it has been Gafford getting more of them, with Lively playing a relatively limited role off the bench, and the numbers of the latter have been indicative of that. He has had some injury issues but returned on the eve of the playoffs, and in those four games he has played he has not played more than 18 minutes once and is not getting very many looks at all when he is on the floor. He had a 10-point game against the Raptors last weekend, but in the other three games since his return he has managed a grand total of just 12 for an average of 4 points per game and a maximum of 6. Betting agencies have set his line at around 6.5, with the under offering better than even money, and even that low number looks too high. He took 7 shots in that aforementioned 10-point game, but in the other three games since his return he has taken just 3, 3 and 1 – a number from which it is obviously virtually impossible to score over 6 points given he does not shoot from beyond the arc. There is no guarantee that he will again take so few shots, but more often than not he’s barely getting a look at the basket. With the Mavericks’ season on the line they will likely lean even more on their best players, giving Davis more minutes on the floor and Lively less, so it would be no surprise to see him play only 10-15 minutes and take just a couple of shots. There is no doubting that this is a low line, but for Lively II, it still does not look low enough.