NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | Jan 30

Thursday will play host to 11 games across the NBA, with notable matchups including the Nuggets vs the Knicks, Cavs vs Heat, Timberwolves vs Suns and Thunder vs Warriors. The first of those is where we will kick off our day’s best bets, with a focus on the best player in the league continuing his run of triple-doubles. Player props will be the name of the game on Thursday, with all three of our bets focusing on individual rather than team performance, but while we start out with one of the biggest names in basketball, later in the day we reckon we’ve found value in a couple of far less celebrated role players. Check out all three bets and our reasoning behind them below.

Nikola Jokic to record a triple-double @ $1.90 with PlayUp

Somehow Jokic missed out on his triple-double by a massive seven rebounds when we backed him to reach one the other day, but that has proved to be a rarity for sometime now and at nearly even money he looks like fantastic value to get one here. That 20-3-11 performance against the Timberwolves was the only time in the last seven games that the three-time MVP has failed to notch up a TD, and if we go back even further he has hit that mark in nine of his last 13 games. Worth noting, however, is that in three of those four games in which he failed to get there, he was either just one rebound or one assist shy of doing it. He has just barely missed out on having notched up a ridiculous 12 triple-doubles in his last 13 games, which makes the $1.90 on offer look really juicy. The Knicks are, of course, a very good team and will prove a more difficult team to fill the stat sheet against than plenty of others, but their quality also means that this will likely be a reasonably close game and Jokic isn’t likely to be sitting out a large period of the fourth quarter in a blowout. We might have missed the mark on this one a few days ago, but that doesn’t change the fact that a Jokic triple-double is fantastic value with most NBA betting sites here.

Jordan Hawkins over 8.5 points @ $1.90 with Questbet

Jordan Hawkins might not be the most high profile player in this game, but sometimes those are the players for whom it’s the easiest to find value. That’s certainly the case here. The second-year guard has received more minutes than he might have otherwise due to the Pelicans’ hefty injury list at times this season, but even with a number of their starters back he is still getting decent minutes and giving them plenty of production in that time. That’s particularly been the case of late, but even over the course of the season he is averaging more than 11 points per game. Despite that, the line set by betting sites for his points in this game is only 8.5. He failed to hit that number in his latest outing, scoring just seven points against the Raptors, but prior to that he had passed it six times in a row and eight times in his previous ten games. Across the course of those ten games, Hawkins is averaging 12.4 points per game, nearly 1.5 times more than his line set for this game, which is a massive differential. He’s been doing that while playing more than 20 minutes per game basically every game, and there is no reason that he won’t get past that number against. Hawkins is not shy about putting up shots, so assuming he does get a decent amount of minutes he will be getting plenty of looks in that time. Making this an even better bet is the fact that the Mavericks are no world beaters from a defensive perspective and this should be a relatively high-scoring game, with the line for it set at 232. Hawkins’ is a double-figure scorer at the moment and has been for most of the season, and his line of 8.5 points looks far too low.

Nick Richards to record 10+ rebounds @ $2.20 with Unibet

Nick Richards is now five games into his career with the Suns, and so far his output has exceeded what he managed in Charlotte. Granted it’s a very small sample size, but the Jamaican was brought to Phoenix as a result of Jusuf Nurkic’s ineffectiveness as their starting centre, and even with him apparently available for the last couple of minutes, he has not received minutes with Richards playing close to 30 and Plumlee getting most of the remainder. Richards’ output across those five games has been up and down, but he has had a couple of big nights and overall looks set to be given more minutes and offer more production than what he has previously in Charlotte. In his five games with the Suns, the big man is averaging 11.8 points and 11.2 rebounds, and has picked up at least 11 rebounds in three of those games. His rebounding line is set closer to what he averaged with the Hornets at 8.5, but it appears likely that will be below what he will average in Phoenix. With betting agencies having not yet adjusted, now is the perfect time to jump on board. Given that he has had a couple of huge games with Phoenix – one in which he racked up 15 boards and another in which he snared 19 – it wouldn’t be unreasonable to go for even more value at 12+ rebounds or similar, but the odds available for double-figure rebounds look like a good balance of value, without quite so much risk.