The NBA is the Wild West right now given COVID-19 and the league’s health protocols, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t edges to be had. We sit at 42-33 on the season for article plays, and look to finish the week strong on Friday.
Follow along on Twitter — @julianedlow — for what we hope to be another great season, as some plays jump out late due to news, particularly in the player prop market. Here’s what jumps out to me on DraftKings Sportsbook.
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Indiana Pacers at Boston Celtics: BOS 1H -1 (-114)
Nothing in the prop world jumping on Friday’s card yet, but we do have a couple of strong half and quarter trends, highlighted in the new DraftKings Sportsbook Betting Trend article. The Celtics have been an embarrassment lately, going just 1-4 straight up and against the spread over their last five games. However, many of these struggles have been enhanced by a road-heavy schedule. At home, Boston is 9-4 ATS in the first half, leading by an average of nearly eight points per game. The Pacers are just 12-18 1H ATS on the season, including 5-8 on the road. From a narrative standpoint, the C’s should be playing desperate coming out of the gates after some atrocious losses on their road trip, including getting dominated wire-to-wire on Wednesday in Atlanta.
Atlanta Hawks at Oklahoma City Thunder: OKC 1Q +1.5 (-110)
This was a trend we backed on Wednesday, which cashed against the Spurs in a near perfect situation. The Hawks aren’t coming off a 10-day layoff and down five players like the Spurs were, so we’ll be more careful here, but the numbers still point to OKC having the early edge. The Thunder are riding a 9-1-1 1Q ATS streak, and the Hawks have been slow out of the gates recently. Atlanta did drop 40 points in the first frame against Boston in that game two nights ago, but was just 1-8 to the 1Q spread in its previous nine games. Maybe they turned a corner, but I’ll go with the bulk of data here that has OKC as the better team out of the gates. Getting points here at home, I like the spot.
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