Why the NBA?
The NBA is much different than any other sport for one main reason… teams, coaches, playing styles and matchups can stay the same for years. Rosters can change, but rarely are they completely overhauled. Coaches can change playing styles, but rarely do they do a complete 180 year to year. Players can start to win matchups they would lose, but usually there is an evolution and progression that takes time. Because of this, and the fact that sometimes teams play as many as 4 times a season (plus anything in the playoffs), Vegas has so much information. This means, whenever Vegas moves a line, they are doing so for a reason. Our points of strength calculator takes into account home vs road flips (3 points is stock for NBA), to help show what Vegas is trying to say with their lines. Remember, just because Vegas moves a line in a teams direction does not always mean they are going to cover;

Line functionality
Vegas often times over-reacts. This concept is known as line functionality. Betting against line functionality consistently is a losing battle, but betting with it 100% of the time does not guarantee success either. The hardest thing for Oddsmakers to handicap is motivation and ambiguity. In the case of the previously mentioned home and home series this week, oddsmakers can make an educated guess on what Brooklyn’s motivation is going to be after a blowout loss, but cannot say for sure; Oddsmakers can make an educated guess on how much Kyrie Irving’s impact will be (since he is not currently available in home games), but they will never be able to know for sure, as a situation like this has never really happened before. Where there is ambiguity and unknown, there is room to take advantage of it. However, in situations where Oddsmakers have a very good feel for what is going on, there is also room to take advantage, case in point the Timberwolves-Warriors season series.

History Window [LineProphet.com]

In Conclusion
This year, we have seen massive line shifts from game to game, towards the team that covers that game. Lets recap; Golden State opened the year against Minnesota as a 7.5 point favorite at home, and won 123-120, a non-cover. In the next matchup, the line flipped all the way back to Minnesota -5 in Minnesota (9.5 points of strength), oddly enough when Golden State was 31-12 and Minnesota was under .500. What happened on this night? A MASSIVE 119-99 blowout. Next matchup? Golden State -6.5 at home (8.5 points of strength). Result? 124-115 Golden State win and cover. The final of 4 regular season matchups this year was earlier this week. Line opened up at Minnesota -1.5, 5 points of strength towards Minnesota. Ironically enough, the public moved this line all the way to -2 Golden State (another talk for another time, but shows why betting splits on certain games mean literally ZERO), however once again, a blowout Minnesota win and cover, 129-114.

Oddsmakers have a very good feel for the Warriors-Timberwolves matchups. Do they have this good a feel for every matchup in the NBA? Of course not, but when they do, we have the ability to really capitalize on it. Our advantage as gamblers is that we have 100% choice on what we choose to bet on. Lets use it.

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