National Basketball Association

Playoff Betting 101

Updated Jul. 17, 2020 3:31 p.m. ET

By Jason McIntyre

Are you ready for the most unique postseason in the history of sports?

That’s what the NBA announced this week: 22 teams confined to a virtual bubble at Disney World in Orlando to finish the regular season, then 16 teams in the playoffs, with no home court advantage and no fans in the stands.

I can’t wait for the wall-to-wall games, and the playoffs are going to be a true war of attrition, with the players quarantined to lovely central Florida.

But how do you bet on games when the season pressed pause for over four months?

Let’s dive into this together — and really quickly, before we get started, here are the top 5 favorites to lift the Larry O'Brien trophy, via FOX Bet:

Milwaukee Bucks: +240

Los Angeles Lakers: +260

Los Angeles Clippers: +340

Houston Rockets: +1200

Boston Celtics: +2000

Home court advantage — and the regular season to a large extent — is irrelevant

Sorry Philadelphia (29-2 at home) and Milwaukee (28-3). And nobody will be making any “South Beach Flu” jokes (Miami was 27-5 at home).

It doesn’t matter at all after a four month layoff, with no fans in attendance and everyone playing in the same place.

But that last fact is where we can dive in and at least glance at the road data, even though these are all going to be neutral site games.

How did teams do away from the friendly confines of their own bed and a home cooked meal? How did teams do coming out of their routine at home, flying to a new city and staying in a hotel and going to a different arena?

The Lakers were an NBA best 26-6 away from Staples, followed by the Bucks (25-9), Raptors (23-9), Thunder (20-11) and Mavericks (21-12).

Don’t expect the stars to play heavy minutes in the first eight games

The eight-game regular season schedule hasn’t been released yet, but I don’t expect LeBron, Giannis and Kawhi Leonard to be playing 30+ minutes a night — or even playing in all of those games.

The Lakers lead the Clippers by 5.5 games for the top seed, and the Clippers are highly unlikely to tumble all the way to the fourth seed. (Remember, Utah’s 2nd leading scorer, Bojan Bogdanovic, had surgery and is done for the year.) The Bucks, meanwhile, lead the Raptors by 6.5 games for the top spot in the East.

Teams will probably be cautious with stars, so as not to risk a minor injury, which in a truncated postseason, could be brutal.

As a result, I’ll be looking to back underdogs early, especially the likes of Portland, New Orleans and Sacramento, all of whom have a decent chance of getting to the play-in stage.

Beware the high-variance Houston Rockets

When you look at futures odds and see the Rockets as the fourth shortest to win it all (+1200), you might be puzzled.

Well, they’re the biggest boom/bust team in the bubble. We remember them missing 27 straight 3-pointers and James Harden annually choking in the playoffs just as vividly, perhaps more so, than their successes.

So after a four-month rest, what will the team that made and took the most 3-pointers this season do? It’s anyone’s guess. They won’t be worn down from playing small ball, that’s for sure. Of course, the opposite is true; coaches in the West have theoretically had 12 weeks to scheme up a defense against them.

Plain and simple: I like the Lakers

When you crunch the win-loss records for the teams going to Orlando against one another, the Lakers were the best, at 37-14, including wins over the Bucks and Clippers right before the quarantine. Oh, and they have LeBron James. I'll be looking to back Los Angeles as much as I can.

Not surprisingly, the Bucks were second at 31-12 against the potential playoff field — but yes, they’ve played eight fewer games against the best teams in the NBA. The Clippers were third at 33-17.

However, if you’re looking for a team that didn’t fare well against bubble teams, but had a strong season, say hello to Boston (24-20). On the other end of the spectrum, the Washington Wizards (10-29 vs. bubble teams) are by far the worst team in the bubble.

By all accounts John Wall, will not be playing. Between the Bradley Beal trade rumors, and the Wizards jeopardizing lottery chances by winning a few games, there’s too much going on there for me to initially look at backing Washington in any capacity. In fact, they're probably a good team to fade early and often.

Which Bucks team will we see?

With all of that said above, win-loss record isn’t everything.

All the buzz is about the Lakers and Clippers, but what do we make of the Bucks, who slumped into the quarantine losers of four of five?

The Bucks were first in point differential against the bubble teams (7.9), followed by the Lakers (5.2), Clippers (4.7) and … those Celtics, at 4.0.

Sure, Giannis sat out two of those recent losses. But we saw their limitations last postseason, struggling to score offensively after taking 2-0 lead on the Raptors. Reminder: Eric Bledsoe was a liability in that series (29 percent shooting, 17 percent on 3-pointers) and Khris Middleton appeared in over his head (just 13.7 ppg).

For a team that was a juggernaut all this season, then had home court advantage ripped away from them, will they come out sluggish? There will be opportunities to bet against them.

Sleeper to gamble on: the Indiana Pacers

One team i’ll be looking to bet in the bubble got off to a slow start due to injuries, but began to heat up before the quarantine.

Indiana went 8-3 before the stoppage, with losses at Toronto, at Milwaukee and against Boston. The big difference was the Pacers were working their best player, Victor Oladipo, back into the lineup. (Sample size alert: in three March games, Oladipo played 27 minutes per game and averaged 19.7 ppg on 45/43/80 shooting.)

The Pacers are fifth in the East, and looking at a likely first round date with with the Miami Heat. A defensive backcourt of Oladipo and Malcom Brogdon is feisty. And when the game slows down in the playoffs and possessions matter, the Pacers have some talent inside with Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner.

And oh by the way, Indiana was sixth in the NBA against the spread this season (54.8 percent).

I'm not sold on the Oklahoma City Thunder

If you’re not a hardcore NBA fan, you’d be surprised to know that the Thunder had the best against the spread record in the NBA this year (62.5 percent), edging out the Celtics (62.3 percent).

...man, Boston just keeps popping up in this data, don't they? Anyway. Even with the Thunder's game-by-game success, OKC isn’t a team I’d invest a title futures wager in, given the injury history of Danilo Gallinari and Chris Paul, plus the fact they’d have to go through the Clippers and the Lakers.

OKC went 1-5 against the LA teams this season, with some narrow losses and a victory over the Paper Clips in December when Kawhi Leonard didn’t play.

Coaching matters more than ever — in multiple ways

The San Antonio Spurs are the only team that hasn’t opened their facility as of today, and it’s unclear when they will. The Spurs are four games behind the Grizzlies for the eighth spot in the playoffs. (Oh, and the Spurs were third worst ATS this season at 40 percent.)

But they do have Gregg Popovich.

Coaching will matter more than ever before in the bubble, with no fans to tune out, no weariness from being away from home, and being able to energize young men who aren’t likely to see their families or friends for perhaps two months.

Still, we don’t yet know which coaches will be in the bubble or at the games, because Adam Silver said older coaches may not be on the sideline. The two oldest head coaches of the 22 teams going to Orlando are the Spurs' Popovich (71) and Mike D’Antoni of the Rockets (69).

The 76ers have 99 problems, but talent's not one

Are you going to put your money on the 76ers?

They were a disaster during the regular season ATS (28-33-4, for a 45% cover percentage), and overall a disappointment despite adding Al Horford in the offseason.

Between alpha issues (Simmons vs. Embiid) and being an embarrassment on the road (10-24), the team felt on the verge of splitting up.

Then Simmons got hurt against Milwaukee, and it looked like he wouldn’t play in the first round of the playoffs. Then the pandemic shutdown gave Simmons time to rehabilitate, and he's presumably healthy now.

All that being said, I’ll pass on backing or fading the 76ers. They're just too much of a wild card.

Can Kawhi Leonard do it again?

A quick word on the Clippers, who were the popular pick to win the title before the season, then struggled to get their core stars on the court at the same time, letting the Lakers pass them.

Paul George suffered three hamstring injuries this calendar year and has missed 22 games. (PG-13 also hasn’t been out of the first round of the playoffs since 2014.)

Kawhi Leonard hasn’t played a back-to-back in over three years (April, 2017 with the Spurs). Marcus Morris, who is going to be in their rotation, has been with the team for all of 12 games.

On paper, they’re tough. People like to say they’ve got “dogs” who like to play defense. But does Morris' presence mean fewer minutes for veteran leaders like Lou Williams? We know LeBron was matchup-hunting Williams in the last meeting (a Lakers win).

I still have a lot of questions about backing the Clippers, even though at the absolute worst, they’re the third best team in the NBA.