Monday presents us with a handful of targetable NBA games from a betting perspective, with a nice mix of viable spreads and implied totals.
As always, my top two early bets to target are listed below, accompanied by the respective book where you can find the odds listed.
Denver Nuggets at Chicago Bulls — over 228.5 (-110, William Hill)
There are typically two things that create a healthy game environment when targeting an over: At least one team playing at a fast pace, and the presence of beatable defenses. This game has both. While Denver runs at the third-lowest pace in the NBA, the Bulls rank sixth overall (103.6 possessions per game), and both teams rank in the bottom half of the NBA in defensive efficiency. Both teams are also allowing over 110 points per game, with the Bulls allowing 114.8 and the Nuggets have allowed 111.2, solidifying the defensive efficiency metric.
When it comes to their Vegas data trends, both of these teams are over .500 on the season against the over/under, with the Nuggets holding the second-highest over record in the NBA at 66.7%, while the Bulls hold a 17-15 (53.1%) over record. With both of these teams playing such brutal defense, points should be easy to come by and this is a total I want to attack before it gets higher.
Dallas Mavericks (-6.5) at Orlando Magic (-110, William Hill)
This game is a clash of two teams heading in polar opposite directions. The Mavs have been rolling over the last few weeks, winning eight of their last 11 games with three of those eight wins coming by at least 10 points, while the Magic have been going in the opposite direction. Dealing with a variety of injuries, they’ve dropped seven of their last 11 games and are in the midst of a three-game skid, losing by an average of 21.6 points over those three games.
The Magic have been able to exploit teams in the paint on the back of Nikola Vucevic, and while that’s exactly where the Mavericks’ defense struggles, it’s hard to trust one center to keep this game close against two superstars in Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, especially when the Magic defense has allowed 119.3 points per game over the last three games (fifth-worst in the NBA).