NBA Multi bet of the Weekend| January 1

The last day of the year in the USA will be the first of our new year in Australia, but whatever year it is where you are, there will be six NBA games taking place over the course of the day. It kicks off with the Wizards hosting the Hawks in the nation’s capital, before concluding with an intriguing clash between the Kings and the Grizzlies, and these three bets make up our multi for the day. 

Monday January 1st, 7.10am AEDT, Capital One Arena 

A couple of days ago, the Hawks played the Kings in a game for which NBA betting sites set the total at 252.5 points. To me that looked way too high and the under was one of our bets of the day as a result, and lo and behold the game came in well under at 227 points. That made it four consecutive games for the Hawks that have yielded comfortably less than that total, the highest in that period being 244, and yet the total has once again been set at a very high 251.5 match points for their upcoming clash against the Wizards. The Wizards are a bad defensive team and have had plenty of high scoring games this season as a result, but like the Hawks they haven’t been surpassing this high total at all of late. In their past five games, the highest score they have had is 247 while in their most recent outing against the Nets, just 214 points were scored. That makes the under 251.5 total match points a no-brainer here. One team hasn’t surpassed this total in their last four games while another hasn’t in their last five, so all signs point to this being too high a total set for the first game of 2024 Australian time. 

Monday January 1st, 11.10am AEDT, Paycom Center 

So it seems as though the Thunder are really good. That isn’t exactly news – this exciting young team, led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the hugely impressive Chet Holmgren and the vastly improved Jalen Williams, are sitting second in the Western Conference with a 21-9 record. But they appear to be getting better every game, and they put in their most impressive performance of the season to date in their last game when they went to Denver – where just one other team had won all year and where the Nuggets went 34-7 in the last regular season – and won 119-93. It was a dominant performance against the reigning champions, and made it three wins in a row – two of those have come against two of the best teams in the league so far this season in Denver and Minnesota. They’ve also won six of seven, and what’s more they’ve done it easily. Their 26-point win against the Nuggets aside, they also beat the Timberwolves by 23, and the Clippers and Grizzlies by 19 apiece. They face easier opposition than most of those teams in the Nets on Monday, and should be able to win by more than the line set by betting agencies of 8.5 points. The Nets aren’t the worst team in the world, but they are coming off a loss against the Wizards and are the definition of a mid-tier side. The Thunder, meanwhile, are stamping themselves as a legitimate championship contender and destroying everyone in their path, so they should be confident that they can cover the 8.5-point line in this game. 

Monday January 1st, 12.10pm AEDT, Footprint Center 

Now to round things out by adding in a little bit of value to the multi. The Suns have had a tumultuous year to date in many ways, with injuries contributing to a general lack of cohesion on what was supposed to perhaps the most talented team in the league, and a subsequent spot smack bang in the middle of the Western Conference. Kevin Durant’s continued incredible consistency hasn’t really translated to all that many wins, but in the last couple of games he appears to have taken it upon himself to perform a new role for the team, spending more time getting others involved. Typically he does this to an extent anyway and is one of the best balanced offensive players in history, but there has been a clear change over the past couple of games in the way he has focused on running the point and passing first, scoring second. Seven assists three games ago started the trend, though that’s only slightly above his season average of 6.1 anyway, but against the Rockets a couple of games ago he went and dished out a huge 16 assists en route to a big triple double, before he handed out 11 last game – while taking just 11 shots, eight of which he hit. On a team with a lot of guys wanting shots, this selfless leader appears to be doing what he can to get them those shots, even if it means less points for him. Despite that, his over/under assists total is still at just 6.5, while even better, he’s at $5 – or more, depending which bookie you use – to get ten assists for the third time in a row. To add some value to our multi, we’re going with the latter, looking for Durant to continue his new role and once again contribute ten or more assists for his Suns at long odds.