NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | Apr 19

The Heat and the Mavericks both belied their statuses as underdogs in their Play-In Tournament elimination games, knocking off the higher ranked Bulls and Kings respectively to keep their seasons alive. On Saturday morning, Australia time, they will play for an official spot in the playoffs against the two losers from the 7 v 8 games in the Hawks and the Grizzlies. With the winners of these games being rewarded with series against the Thunder in the West and the Cavaliers in the East, none of them are likely to go particularly far in the playoffs, but don’t expect them to be thinking that way. There will be plenty of heat in these two contests, and below we’ve outlined our three best bets across the games.

Dyson Daniels over 4.5 assists @ $2.05 with Unibet

Dyson Daniels has had a breakout 2024-25 and is the runaway favourite to win the Most Improved Player award, and while his defence is a major reason for that, he’s shown plenty at the other end of the floor as well. Daniels is the quintessential Swiss army knife, able to contribute in a multitude of ways, and while he has had his moments as a scorer, in recent times it’s been his passing that has really stood out. Daniels averages 4.4 assists per game this season, but he’s been spending more time on the ball in recent games and putting up some really good assist numbers, particularly given that he plays alongside the league leader in that category in Trae Young. In his last five games, Daniels averages 6.5 assists per game, and has accumulated at least six of them in all but one of those games. He’s racked up 9, 8 and 7 of them in their last three games, too, but despite that the assist line set for him by betting sites has remained right around his season average – in fact, it’s even slightly below that given he is at better than even money to go over 4.5. This is expected to be a tightly contested game and with a spot in the playoffs on the line, both teams will be locked in defensively and buckets won’t be easy to come by. But Daniels has been passing this line with ease of late, and there is no reason to think that he will not do that again on Saturday morning.

Bam Adebayo to record 2+ three-pointers @ $3.50 with PlayUp

Bam Adebayo’s ventures outside the three-point line this season have been long overdue, with the talented big man previously only very rarely shooting three-pointers despite being a good free throw and having solid touch from outside the paint. He’s not exactly Steph Curry, but the move beyond the arc has proved well and truly worth it. Bam is shooting 35.7% from long range for the season, and while it’s been on relatively low volume, he has been hitting them with far more efficiency for a while now and taking more shots as a result. In fact, in the Heat’s win against the Bulls last game, Adebayo hit just one three, and that was the first time since eight games earlier that he had failed to make multiple shots from beyond the arc in a game. Harking back even further, in his last 13 games Adebayo has hit at least two threes ten times, and has been hitting his long-range attempts at an impressive 50%. That’s obviously an unsustainable number, but he’s clearly feeling good in his stroke and has been taking increasingly more three-point attempts in recent games as a result, having thrown up 5 in the last game, and 6, 3 and 7 in the three games prior. To me, you could easily make the argument that Bam is a good 50/50 chance of hitting multiple threes in this game, if not better given that he has done it in 10 of his last 13 games. Despite that, some NBA betting sites are offering a huge $3.50 for him to hit at least two of them. That is some serious value, and while it’s a streaky sort of bet given it only takes one rim out to ruin it, at the odds on offer this one looks well and truly worth it.

Over 222.5 total points @ $1.88 with QuestBet

While it is true that many playoff and Play-In Tournament games see higher levels of defence played compared to the regular season and sometimes lower scores as a result, the line set by betting agencies for this game still looks much too low. From a Mavericks perspective it’s somewhat understandable – they went past it in their first Play-In game by a few points and have actually played in three consecutive games which have passed this total, but prior to that they were virtually alternating going over and under this number. The Grizzlies, however, are a fast-paced, high-scoring team, and rarely do they play in a game that sees less than 223 points scored. In their first Play-In game against the Warriors, 237 points were scored, which made it five consecutive games in which they had gone over this number – including once against the Mavericks. Prior to that they had a couple more low scoring ones, but if we want to go right back we can see that over an extended period of time, Grizzlies games have been far more high-scoring than this line would suggest. In fact, in their 83 games this season, Memphis have only played ten games that have gone under this line. Ten! A Grizzlies game as low-scoring as is required to go under this line has proven to be very rare throughout the course of the season, and it’s unusual to see their line so low. Granted the Mavericks can struggle offensively at times and are stronger defensively with Anthony Davis in the line-up, but given that they have been passing this number a little more often than not and are coming up against one of the more high-scoring teams in the league, the over here looks like a really good bet to round out the day’s action.