The early portion of the NBA season rolls on with four games on Tuesday night, including two on national television.
While the Pistons and Wizards and Clippers and Thunder meet on League Pass, TNT will have a doubleheader featuring Mavericks vs. Pelicans and Warriors vs. Suns.
Despite just four games on this light slate, our NBA analysts have found plenty of value, with a quartet of picks that include a spread, total, and two player props.
Here are our best bets from tonight's NBA slate.
NBA Odds & Picks
Detroit Pistons vs. Washington Wizards
Andrew O'Connor-Watts:After finishing last season 18-5-2 ATS, I thought the Pistons would be one of the more intriguing teams in 2022-23. But we’re three games in and I can’t say that I’ve canceled plans to watch any of their League Pass games.
While there’s still plenty of time for the Pistons to turn things around, what I’ve seen so far has not been promising.
Their offense has looked horrible, ranking 27th in eFG% (49.3%) and 21st in offensive rating (108.8), according to CleaningTheGlass.com. In fact, ORB% is the only Four Factors category in which they rank above average, at sixth-best in the league (32.2%).
A main reason for the Pistons’ offensive woes is their lack of rim success.
Detroit attempts the most shots at the rim (45.7%), but is dead-last in shooting percentage from that area (50.5%).
While the Pistons haven’t been much better from behind the 3-point line, it’s their most successful shooting category, where they rank 18th in the league (36.0%).
Detroit’s one saving grace has been its corner threes, which they shoot at 50% accuracy, good enough to rank sixth in the NBA.
But that’s where the Wizards' portion of this handicap comes into play.
The Wizards are holding opposing teams to the third-lowest eFG% in the league at 48%, and they do so by protecting the highest-percentage area of the 3-point line: the corner.
This season, Washington has held opponents to the 12th-lowest percentage of corner threes in the league (8.7%). When they do allow them, the Wizards rank third in opponent FG% (20%).
Washington also ranks fifth in rim protection at 57.3%, and we already know the Pistons love attacking the rim for whatever reason.
I love the Wizards to cover -5 tonight (bet to -6). They’re 3-1-1 in their last five games vs. the Pistons and 7-0-1 ATS in their last eight in D.C.
If you want to add a correlated bet, in the past five games where the Wizards have won/covered against the Pistons, the game has gone under in all five. Grab the under while you’re at it down to 221.
Detroit Pistons vs. Washington Wizards
Sam McQuillan: The Detroit Pistons aren’t very good at stopping their opponents' best perimeter players.
On Saturday, they gave up 24 points and 10 assists to Tyrese Haliburton, and 27 and 2 to rookie Bennedict Mathurin.
No offense to the Pacers’ fledgling backcourt — they could be an All-Star tandem some day — but neither player is near the franchise player Bradley Beal is right now.
Beal is averaging 23 points and 6 assists on 61%([) shooting in his first three games and is coming off a 27 and 5 performance against a much better Cleveland defense.
Beal’s played at least 37 minutes every game this season and Tuesday night's matchup should be competitive enough to avoid a blowout; Washington’s season win total line was only six games higher than Detroit’s entering the season.
Beal is also averaging 26.5 and 5.8 in his last eight games against Detroit.
That makes Beal over 28.5 points and assists a no brainer against a Pistons team lacking brand names in the perimeter defense department, but competitive enough to keep Washington calling Beal’s number on offense.
Dallas Mavericks vs. New Orleans Pelicans
Chris Baker: Both of these teams currently rank top-5 in adjusted offensive rating on the season but I still believe this total is too high. The Pelicans have played three weaker defenses in the Hornets, Nets and Jazz while the Mavericks 'offensive rating is inflated after playing a Grizzlies defense that ranks 26th in adjusted defensive rating. I think these offenses are being over-valued right now.
The Pelicans are 13th in pace and the Mavericks are down at 25th. This is nothing new for either of these teams as they both finished bottom-10 in pace in 2022.
With injury designations to Brandon Ingram and potentially Zion Williamson, we should expect CJ McCollum and Jonas Valanciunas to see more usage. We could see a lot more isolation for McCollum and more post-ups for Valanciunas, which would lengthen the average possession length for this Pelicans team.
New Orleans currently ranks No. 1 in the NBA in transition points per 100 possessions (8.1) but just 18th in points per 100 in the half-court. If Williamson can’t suit up that would pretty much eliminate their transition game. Even if he does play, Dallas ranks fourth in transition defense so far, allowing just 0.8 points per 100 possessions. We also don’t have to worry about Dallas pushing the ball.
Another thing leading me to the under is a potential low-volume of 3-point attempts. The Pelicans currently rank dead-last in the league in 3-point frequency with just 23% of their shot-attempts coming from 3. The next closest team is Chicago up at 28.5%. The Pelicans are just not taking any threes and we should expect that to continue against a stout Dallas defense that has been elite at guarding the 3-point line going back to last season.
Ultimately, I think it is highly likely that we see a slow, half-court-dominated game with tons of mid-range shots and that is what leads me to an under here.
Los Angeles Clippers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder
Munaf Manji: Are the Thunder already starting the tank-athon only three games into the season?
The Thunder will be without their top two playmakers, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey, who are dealing with injuries. As a result, the scoring load will fall on another player and tonight that will be Lu Dort.
Thus far this season, Dort has not found success shooting the ball efficiently. In fact, Dort is shooting a mere 30% from the field and just 20% from three-point land.
However, Dort is getting up the shot attempts (13.3) and playing significant minutes per game (30.7) for the Thunder early on. Furthermore, last season, in 11 games without Gilgeous-Alexander, Dort averaged 20.4 points per game while shooting, 37.8% from the field and 34% from beyond the arc.
I expect Dort to have a better shooting night than what we have seen and get over this projection for the Thunder tonight who will be without their top two players.
