If you love betting the NBA, you couldn't ask for a better slate than the one on tap for tonight. Wednesday night's schedule features 13 games, including what should be an entertaining game between the Memphis Grizzlies and Milwaukee Bucks.
Our analysts are chomping at the bit to bet three of those matchups. They are betting two spreads and one alternate prop with 6-1 odds. You can check out their analysis for all three games and best bets for Wednesday night below.
NBA Odds & Picks
Brooklyn Nets vs. WashingtonWizards
Raheem Palmer: The Brooklyn Nets come into this game losers of two of their past three games after Monday's 114-107 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. They'll be without Kevin Durant, who has been the midst of an MVP caliber season, for at least four weeks.
The Nets are scoring 114.1 points per 100 possessions with Durant on the floor vs 110.1 with him off the floor. With Kyrie Irving missing most of this season and now playing only road games, they're essentially replacing Durant with Irving. While he's had a huge impact on the offense, the Nets defensive struggles should get worse in the absence of their 6-foot-11 wing who can also act as a rim protector and dominate on the glass.
Over the past two weeks, the Nets rank 25th in Defensive Rating per Cleaning the Glass, allowing 117.5 points per 100 possessions in their non garbage time minutes and they come off a game against the Cavaliers in which they gave up an 1.20 points per possession. The Cavaliers lacked true playmakers outside of Darius Garland but still had success and the Nets will have to deal with a Washington Wizards team that has two playmakers: Bradley Beal and Spencer Dinwiddie.
In addition the Nets are one of the worst defensive rebounding teams in the league, ranking 25th grabbing just 27.4% of available rebounds. The Wizards rank 28th in Offensive Rebound Rate, but they dominate on the defensive glass.
The Wizards are finally healthy for the first time this season and with Rui Hachimura and Thomas Bryant back on the floor, they are extremely deep and likely too much for a Nets team missing Durant, Joe Harris Nic Claxton, Paul Millsap and possibly DeAndre' Bembry who is questionable for tonight.
FanDuel has the Wizards +1, but I'd still lay it with the Wizards at -1 where the rest of the market has this line.
MinnesotaTimberwolves vs. Atlanta Hawks
Brandon Anderson: Karl-Anthony Towns is this team's superstar and likely All-Star, Anthony Edwards has next as the new face of the franchise. But D'Angelo Russell's resurgence has played a big part in this team's winning ways. He leads the team in On/Off at +7.6 points per 100 possessions, and he's at 18.6 points and 7.0 assists per game.
The scoring remains inconsistent and inefficient at times, but Russell's passing genes have always been clear, and he's starting to put up some big time assist numbers lately. Just check out his last nine games on the court: 9.2 assists per game, including six of those nine games with double-digit dimes.
That number can crater at times — Russell had just four dimes last game and had a three-assist game in this stretch too. But we don't really care how low the number is, since a miss is a miss. We're looking for ceiling outcomes, and Russell has hit this over in 67% of his last nine games versus an implied 14% at this number.
Per NBA Advanced Stats, Russell is averaging an outstanding 15.4 potential assists per game during this stretch. That's way up from his season average and ranks top 10 in the entire NBA during that stretch, and it shows that this production is no fluke.
The way Russell is playing right now, he's a nightly threat for double digit assists. And don't forget, D-Lo is facing Trae Young and the Hawks tonight. They rank second-to-last in Defensive Rating and allow the second-most opponent assists in the league.
You can play the more traditional assist line if you want — that's over 6.5 at plus juice — but I'd rather be more aggressive since his numbers are high variance. Heck, I might even nibble on Russell to have 12 assists on FanDuel at +1400. He's done that in four of these nine games. It's an outlier result, but one totally in his range.
These numbers are badly mispriced. We're still more likely to lose than win, but the upside here is too hard to pass on. Let's take a swing.
Toronto Raptors vs. Dallas Mavericks
Joe Dellera: The Raptors visit the Mavericks today as 3.5-point underdogs. Both of these teams have played well lately. The Raptors have a +4.9 point differential over their last two weeks to go along with a 5-3 record, plus they are 7-3 straight up and Against the Spread over their last 10 games.
However, the Mavericks have been even hotter. They are 9-1 across their last 10 games and over the last two weeks they have a +13.1 point differential and they are allowing just 101.3 points per 100 possessions, both the best marks in the NBA, per Cleaning the Glass.
The Mavericks’ offense started off slow but they’ve improved exponentially with Jalen Brunson joining the starting lineup to help Luka Doncic facilitate, play off ball, and keep this offense from being stagnant. Additionally Kristaps Porzingis is playing better on both sides of the floor now that he’s healthy.
There is a clash of styles here as Dallas smashes in their halfcourt offense while the Raptors excel in transition. The problem for the Raptors is that Dallas defends both the halfcourt and transition well, while Toronto is about league average defending halfcourt offensive attacks.
Dallas has the edge here and if they can stop the Raptors in transition it should slow the game down and allow them to focus on their strength in the halfcourt.
I’ll back the Mavericks to cover this short spread.
