The NBA season continues on Sunday with a packed slate of 11 games that will give bettors the chance to get some action all day. Our NBA staff has three picks for today's games, including Austin Wang and Matt Moore taking the same side in Hawks vs. Hornets and Brandon Anderson's plus juice parlay for the nightcap between the Jazz and Warriors. Find these bets and analysis below.
NBA Odds & Picks
Atlanta Hawks vs. Charlotte Hornets
Austin Wang: Are the Atlanta Hawks back?! After a putrid start to the season, they've shown some signs of life recently. They've won and covered three games in a row against a tough group of teams: the Milwaukee Bucks, Minnesota Timberwolves and Miami Heat.
The Charlotte Hornets, however, have also been on fire as well. They've won and covered seven of their previous eight games. During this eight-game stretch, they've led the league in Net Rating (10.1) and their improved Defensive Rating was second overall (102.6), per NBA Advanced Stats.
They've also got the league's best ATS record at home: 15-4 ATS (78.9%). The Hornets have really had success against teams with bad defenses, an issue the Hawks have been struggling with.
The Hornets are 17-5 (77.3%) ATS against teams that play at a Pace below the league average, per the Sports Data Query Language at Gimme the Dog. Floor general LaMelo Ball controls the tempo and ensures that these teams that play a slow pace are out of their comfort zone.
The Hawks will also be without Bogdan Bogdanovic and could be without the services of Kevin Huerter and Danilo Gallinari, both key players in their rotation.
I'll back the hometown Hornets to cover the spread of -3 (up to -4) tonight.
Atlanta Hawks vs. Charlotte Hornets
Matt Moore: The Hawks are playing better; they've won three in a row. But the defense has shown no signs of life; they are 30th in defensive rating in non-garbage time the past two weeks, per Cleaning The Glass.
The Hornets are 12-6 straight up this season vs. bottom-10 defensive teams per Cleaning The Glass, with a +2.0 Spread Differential.
In particular, transition is a huge issue. The Hawks are the worst team in the league, per Synergy Sports, in transition points allowed per possession. The Hornets play the most in transition of any team in the league, spending roughly 19% of all possessions in fastbreak. The Hawks do a good job of preventing those opportunities with the fourth-lowest rate, but they can't get stops when teams challenge them. The Hornets will.
I make the Hornets considerable favorites here and like them at home with a defensive scheme that doesn't allow Trae Young to get open runs to the rim.
Utah Jazz vs. Golden State Warriors
Brandon Anderson: Looks like Steph Curry's shooting slump may be over. From January 3 through January 13, Curry was ice cold, hitting just 22% of his 3s. He hit more than two in a game only once in those five games and averaged just 2.0 makes per game, with his attempts dipping to 9.0.
He's bounced back quickly over his four games since, with at least four made 3s in each game. The shooting is right back to around his usual at 38%, and his attempts have ticked up to 11.8 per game, even with two of those games playing fewer minutes in easy wins. He also hit his first ever game-winner in Golden State's last game. As the kids say: Steph back.
With the sort of volume Steph gets, it's just not asking that much for him to hit five 3s. He's done that in 23 of 42 games this season (over half of them), and we're getting +130 on this prop while the books have over-adjusted for his shooting slump. We project Curry at 5.7 makes tonight, and he's gone over this in six of his last seven against the Jazz, and that makes sense. Utah plays a ton of drop coverage in defense, leaving Steph room to fire away — and if Rudy Gobert is out tonight, then there's not much defense left anyway.
And then there's this. When Steph makes three or fewer 3s this season, the Warriors are only 5-6. But when he makes at least four, they're nearly unbeatable at 29-4. That's why he's the MVP front runner, after all. So if we're betting on Steph's 3s, we may as well juice the odds by parlaying it with a Warriors moneyline winner too, especially with Gobert and Donovan Mitchell question marks. We get our parlay at +247 at DraftKings.
