Spotting an Upset in the NBA

Starting in the fall and continuing through to spring, the NBA season presents a wealth of betting opportunities for basketball handicappers. Over that span, each of the league’s 30 franchises plays a total of 82 games. This results in a total of 1,230 basketball betting opportunities just during the regular season.

The playoffs present even more chances to spot NBA upsets. Eight teams from either conference compete in best-of-seven series in every round, including the championship. There are fewer postseason underdogs advancing, but you can still profit on individual games.

In general, the NBA has less parity than other major professional sports leagues. With only five players on the floor at a time, each athlete’s impact on a franchise’s success far exceeds the importance of any single participant in other games.

In today’s NBA, we are seeing superstars teaming up to compete at a higher rate than ever before, while organizations without a legitimate shot at winning a title are content to tank for lottery draft picks that change their fortunes in the future.

This setup results in a league consisting mostly of “haves” and “have nots,” with a handful of middling teams stuck in between. That’s why you may not have as many chances to win money betting on NBA underdogs as you would in a sport like baseball, for example.

These performances can be triggered by anything from player fatigue to stylistic matchups to locker-room chemistry issues.

However, if you focus on the right factors, you can increase your winning percentage enough to grow the size of your sports betting bankroll.

I want to share with you a variety of variables to analyze whenever you’re betting on the NBA online. By merely improving your likelihood of success by a few percentage points, you can use this information to maximize the value you’re getting from online sportsbooks’ basketball odds.

Early Season Value

The first few weeks of the season can be extremely profitable for handicappers who kept up with the news and did their homework during the offseason. Not only will the oddsmakers be working without as much data, but the public is likely to hammer the favorites from the prior season without considering potential changes to their favorite squads.

Fans always expect all of their players to improve from the year before and never consider potential regression. If you look to fade specific teams—those with the more widespread, enthusiastic fanbases—you will find significant value. Think about the 2018 Boston Celtics, who everyone believed to be a championship contender after adding Kyrie Irving.

As the season progresses, lines will continue to become sharper. Online sportsbooks will have a clearer view of the contenders and pretenders, while the supporters of struggling squads are unlikely to keep blindly betting on their teams and inflating the odds in ways that benefit smart bettors.

An easy way to hit underdog wagers early in the NBA season is by targeting franchises with prominent top-tier draft picks coming into their rookie year. The public spends the offseason hearing about how spectacular these young players are and how much potential they have, severely overrating the effect they’ll have on wins in their inaugural campaign.

Before his injury, Zion Williamson’s New Orleans Pelicans were the perfect candidate to fade as favorites in the opening few weeks.

Stylistic Matchups

What you won’t see by simply studying a squad’s win/loss record is how they match up with different opponents stylistically. An organization that is considered the superior team overall may struggle against a specific franchise that has the ideal roster or system to counter what they do. It doesn’t matter that they lose more frequently against the rest of the NBA, as long as they have this particular foe’s number.

To anticipate how any two teams will match up, you’ll need to research several unique factors, including their roster strengths and weaknesses, depth, and tendencies on both offense and defense. Teams that shoot a high volume of three-pointers will see more variance in their scoring outputs with very high ceilings as well as low floors.

These teams will be more vulnerable against squads with excellent perimeter defense, like the Los Angeles Clippers, for example, who will have Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Patrick Beverley, locking down outside shooters.

While the Clippers appear to have an elite backcourt defensively, however, they are especially weak in their frontcourt coming into the season. This makes Steve Ballmer’s franchise a particularly favorable matchup for the Lakers, who will be running pick-and-rolls with LeBron, Anthony Davis, and Dwight Howard all day long.

If we throw the Houston Rockets into the mix, we see the best example of how stylistic matchups matter. With their deep bench, an assortment of versatile players, and superstar guards running the show, the Rockets are built to outrun and outshoot the Lakers. Meanwhile, they’ll have a much more difficult time facing the lockdown perimeter defense of the Clippers.

You may also want to look into the frequency at which organizations utilize the pick-and-roll.

• It’s crucial for the defense to have flexible athletes who can guard multiple positions, allowing them to switch assignments on every pick and have a real shot at shutting their opponents down.
• A rim-protecting big man could be another critical variable when judging the defense’s chances of success.

There are dozens of specific player matchups or stylistic clashes to consider when attempting to spot NBA upsets. The more informed you are about the details of the contest and the less you rely on win/loss records or ESPN rankings, the easier it will be to win underdog bets while wagering on baskbetball.

Referee Assignments

Throughout the league’s history, there have been various officiating gaffes and controversies that have left viewers and handicappers alike wondering if everything is on the up-and-up with the NBA. Never has the integrity of the game been more in question than during the 2007 Tim Donaghy betting scandal.

Donaghy, one of the NBA’s referees, was investigated by the FBI and found to have been betting on games, despite that being illegal. Using his knowledge of different biases held by fellow officials against certain players and coaches, and his ability to influence the outcomes of contests, Tim was providing picks to members of organized crime who were making a small fortune.

Since serving his time, Tim Donaghy has been extremely outspoken about how much input the league and individual referees have in deciding matchups. This is especially true in the playoffs, where the NBA has a vested interest in extending series to six or seven games.

While the league has been adamant that Donaghy was an isolated case, it’s still fairly obvious that some referees have personal grudges against specific players and coaches.

Take some time to search the names of referees with upcoming assignments, along with the franchises they’ll be officiating. You may find a history of complaints about them or stats that prove a competitor’s chances of winning significantly decline when that ref is calling the action. You should then make a note of these biases, so you’re always aware of any conflicts when betting on basketball.

Road Trips and Back-to-Backs

The NBA season is a long, grueling 82 games, featuring multiple back-to-back contests and hectic road trips. No matter how talented a roster may be, no athlete is immune to jet lag and fatigue. Take advantage of this factor now; the league has been gradually reducing the average number of back-to-backs from 19.3 five years ago to only 12.4 this season.

The National Basketball Association already did away with the dreaded “four games in five nights” stretches that basketball handicappers had grown to love so much. That said, just because the scheduling has improved doesn’t mean fatigue is no longer a problem.

Back in 2019, most of the league’s talent was located in the West, including 4/5 All-NBA first-teamers. So, you can expect many of those squads (the Clippers, Lakers, Warriors, etc.) to open as favorites in the vast majority of their contests. However, it’s been proven that teams traveling from the Pacific to the Eastern time zone tend to underperform, especially in the first half of their next game.

Because the three marquee California franchises employ the most prominent names in the sport and carry the largest fan bases, you can already expect for their betting lines to be mispriced. If you can target them on the road, playing their first game on an East Coast road trip, you should find significant value, at least on the first half bets.

Line Movement

At the higher levels of sports handicapping, a large portion of one’s time is spent observing line movement and timing wagers to maximize value. So, your analytical model tells you the likelihood of either side winning, and you wait for a price with an implied probability lower than the percentage chance you’ve come up with.

But line movement can also act as a signal to assist more casual bettors as well. The public tends to wager on the side perceived to be the better team, meaning the majority of the money comes in on the favorites. When the line starts raising, you know that roughly 70% of the cash is being bet on the favorite. These inflated lines are ideal for fading, giving you increased value on the underdog.

While the favorite may see a greater total number of bets, the serious money is being placed on the other side. If you catch this reverse line movement early, it’s never a bad idea to throw your hat in with the wiseguys! After all, if anyone has some inside knowledge of what’s to come, it’s them.

“Fighting Loss” Stats

Quite a bit of context is lost when looking at an NBA team’s win/loss record. It doesn’t tell you their strength of schedule, how many of those games were lost due to injuries, or even how competitive a squad has been in the contests in which they’ve been defeated. There’s a difference between being a bad team and being unfortunate.

That’s why you’ll want to research “fighting losses,” defined as the percentage of losses in which the franchise was within five points of their opponent in the last five minutes of play. Losing squads that are consistently competitive, but have been on the wrong side of some clutch situations, are more likely to upset their favored opponents than truly poor teams which are routinely blown out.

That may be obvious, but the betting public rarely considers more than an organization’s overall record and their own fandom. By gathering this information, and combining an underdog’s percentage of fighting losses with the other factors in this article, you can gain an edge without requiring much effort.

Let Down Games

Let down games are less of an issue in the NBA than in other sports or levels of play, but they still occur from time to time. These upsets are most common following a blowout win or a crucial victory over a heated rival.

Important contests with playoff implications and nationally televised prime time matchups may apply as well. Essentially, any scenario in which the athletes may allow their recent accomplishments to reduce their urgency in the next game.

Another positive aspect of targeting let down games is that the public overreacts to whatever has happened most recently. So, a team coming off a 15-point win will likely see more money coming in based on the last game alone. With the added attention comes an inflated line and more value for handicappers wagering on the upset.

Rivalry Games

When two teams hate each other, you can throw traditional statistics and handicapping variables out the window. In the NBA, these heated rivalries don’t come along too frequently. But when they do, they tend to favor the underdog. I’m not saying the added intensity will actually move the odds to turn a dog into a favorite, only that the chances of an upset are moderately improved.

The crowd gets more involved, there’s more trash-talking, and the contest gets more physical. Depending on the favored team, the added drama can either knock them off their game or it can inspire them to perform even better. You need to have some insight into the makeup of the key players on each squad to make an educated pick.

Divisional rivals face each other more often and gain a certain familiarity with each other. The favorite may not gain the same advantages from their playing style as they would against organizations that only see them twice a year.

For example, James Harden has a unique rhythm to his game that can be unstoppable during the regular season, against opponents without much time to prepare specifically for what he does. However, divisional rivals like the Spurs and playoff opponents that get to see him multiple games in a row do a much better job at slowing the prolific scorer down.

The Wrap Up

Few moments in sports betting are more thrilling than hitting a big upset bet. This is especially true when it comes to betting on the NBA, a league comprised of a handful of top-tier superteams, and a plethora of tanking or rebuilding organizations. Despite the enormous talent gap between the “haves” and “have nots,” there are still plenty of substantial upsets that occur throughout every franchise’s 82-game regular season.

Keep in mind that none of the factors discussed in this article are necessarily useful at spotting NBA upsets on their own. You want to research them all and make your decisions based on all of the data collected. Some games will feature more of these red flags that appear to help the underdogs than others.

Turning the odds slightly in your favor is the best you can hope for when it comes to betting on the NBA online, or any other sport, really. Fortunately, when it comes to spotting NBA upsets, you can win far fewer than you lose while still turning a profit!