NBA Playoff Betting

It’s NBA playoff time, baby! The part of the season where every game matters, rotations get tight, and “load management” is no longer in play.

But while the product on the court sharpens, the differences in play also beg new strategies to find a potential betting edge.

Today, I am jazzed to share my Robin Hood guide to identifying winning opportunities in the NBA playoffs.

We’ll look at game to game betting trends related to “best-of-7” series play (the infamous “zig-zag”) and consider entry points for “series price” markets.

As always, we’ll look to continue our profitable ways with (NBA) bets of the week!

Let’s get after it.

Playoff Betting Trends

1) The Zig-Zag Theory — This trend observes that in a best-of-7 NBA playoff series, the team that lost the previous game is more likely to cover the spread in the next one.

I found this trend to be most profitable after a Game 1 loss.

Let’s take a look at the numbers for teams that lost the first game of a series since 2005.

We’ll break out our table by cohort:

Wow.

Blindly betting teams that lost a series opener against the spread in Game 2 would have produced a double-digit ROI and a very solid profit over a nearly 20 year time horizon!

When considering betting trends, I always start by seeking a credible hypothesis as to why this trend might exist.

In considering why zig-zag betting won money historically, I came up with three main potential causes:

• Effort and urgency increase in early playoff games — Teams down 0–1 face must-win pressure and teams with a win under their belt exhale slightly or “feel out” adjustments.

• Coaches adjust every game in a series against the same team — They’ve seen the opponent once, know how stars are being defended and where mismatches may exist. Inevitably, coaches make tweaks and improvements after a loss.

• Public reaction to Game 1 moves lines to create value — NBA playoff games will have more concentrated public money than any regular season game, so books may shade the Game 2 line toward the team that looked better in Game 1.

All of those explanations feel credible to me.

Given how “known” this trend is, it’s possible that sportsbooks will adjust and reduce potential value, but I feel confident in opportunistically looking at home teams and/or favorites that drop their opener as Game 2 bets against the spread.

Here’s another way to look for value based on the same concept:

2) Entering a “series winner” market after Game 1 - As discussed above, game 1 is the first playoff sample we get, and that one game can greatly influence perception.

This is especially true if a lower seed wins as an underdog, or there’s a blowout that implies an unexpected mismatch.

While betting the loser in Game 2 (zig-zag) is one way to play this trend, another approach is to bet the loser to win the series at a comparatively attractive price.

This has three major benefits when compared with betting Game 2 alone:

• Series winner markets, when shopping for the best line, consistently offer a house edge below 4%, sometimes even below 2%. You’re not conceding edge the way you might be when making a futures bet.

• The team that loses Game 1 cares about winning Game 2, not covering the spread. With a series winner bet you are fully aligned with the team’s goals, and eliminate variance that may come from a large point spread.

• Zig-zag isn’t perfect, and sometimes a team will require more than one game to “crack” their opponent’s scheme and adjust. Series winner bets capture value and allow multiple paths to success.

Juice Reel lists “series winner” markets under the NBA Futures tab, and has pretty good coverage by which to find the best available price. I’d also look at prediction markets like Kalshi to find a couple extra percentage points.

Bet of the Week $$

Last week we went 1-1 and lost 0.07 units of vig. We won on the first day of Rory’s triumphant turnaround, and lost when John Rahm underperformed again on Friday of the Masters.

Even so, since starting the newsletter, bets given out in this section are ahead 12.9 units, at a positive 18% ROI. We’ll update this regularly.

Based on my research, I am making the following bets this week:

• Memphis -6 @-105 on Caesars for 1 unit (play in game)

10 seeds (Dallas in this case) have never made the playoffs via the play-in tournament, and this feels like a synthetics “zig-zag” opportunity with Dallas coming off a blowout win on the road and Memphis falling to the Warriors.

I’m comfortable laying the points and “zagging” to a big Memphis home win on Friday.

• Warriors +2 @-110 on Fanatics @-110 for 1 unit (Saturday Game 1)

Golden State has covered 65% of Game 1s under Steve Kerr, including road openers.

Their experience, prep time, and pace manipulation frustrate young opponents and they’ve got endless playoff experience with Steph, Draymond and now Jimmy Butler.

I’ll look to bet Houston in Game 2 (and maybe to win the series) if the Warriors take Game 1 outright as I expect.

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