NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | April 10

After an incredible Sunday of NBA action which saw multiple buzzer beaters and a lot of movement in the standings, the league took a day off on Monday as attention turned to the NCAA Tournament championship. But it returns on what is set to be a huge Wednesday, with 14 games and all but two teams set to take to the floor. With just a handful of games to go in the regular season and very little separating a lot of teams jostling for playoff spots, there are a number of really significant games set to take place across the day. A couple of those feature in our best bets of the day, including a potential Eastern Conference Final matchup between the Celtics and Bucks and a big game between the Clippers and Suns. Check out those bets below.  

Celtics -1.5 | $1.85 with GetSetBet 

The Celtics and Bucks have loomed as the likely one and two seeds respectively in the Eastern Conference throughout the course of the season, and with only four games to go in the regular season for most teams those are the spots that they currently occupy. But while they may be alongside one another in the standings, there is a big difference in quality between these two teams, particularly in recent times. The Celtics are an incredible 15 games clear at the top of the East having already won 62 games, and despite the fact that they have long ago sewn up top spot, they are showing no signs of taking it easy in the lead-up to the postseason. They have won five games in a row and 14 of their last 16, with the only two losses they’ve suffered coming in succession against, somewhat strangely, the Hawks. The Bucks, meanwhile, are limping their way to the playoffs about as capably as a three-legged version of their namesake. They should have sewn up the second seed by now, but instead they have gone and lost four games in a row in what should have been a really easy stretch of games for them. Losing to the Wizards was bad enough; then they lost to the Grizzlies, and then perhaps worst of all to a Raptors team which had lost 15 consecutive games. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard both missed games in that stretch but at least one of them played in all of them, and even with them both back on the floor in their latest game they gave up an 11-point half-time lead to the Knicks and ultimately went down by 13 points. They are now just a game clear in second place and are not playing remotely like the clear second favourite to come out of the East. The gap between the Celtics and the rest in their conference seems to be widening by the game, and the very small handicap they have been given by betting sites doesn’t seem like nearly enough.

Victor Wembanyama over 16.5 assists + rebounds | $1.87 with PlayUp 

It’s safe to say that Victor Wembanyama has lived up to the hype. That was never going to be easy to do, given that the hype suggested he was set to be the best player to enter the league since LeBron James, if not better, but he has put together an alarmingly good rookie season and perhaps most frighteningly, has improved drastically throughout its course. He is scoring more and more efficiently and heavily, is swatting a ridiculous amount of shots (he has 28 blocks in his last six games), and perhaps most notably has significantly upped his assist numbers as the season has worn on. Having dished out at least five of them in his last six games and averaged a tick under seven per game in that time, his over of 4.5 assists looks tempting, but it’s accompanied by relatively short odds with most betting agencies too. But notably, Wembanyama has also been rebounding the ball at a very impressive rate of late, and combining those two statistical categories gives us a combination which, if recent form is anything to go by, he should be passing pretty comfortably. Wemby has had 12 or more rebounds in four of his last five games and 15 or more in three of them, and his assist + rebound number has ticked past 20 in four of those five games too. With his line for those stats set at just 16.5 for this game, this looks like a really good bet, particularly against the Grizzlies. If you can’t get the assist + rebound bet with your NBA betting site then either of them individually as an over also looks a good bet, but combined it looks even better. 

Clippers +7.5 | $1.90 with BlueBet

It looks like Clippers might be back. I say that tentatively; it’s been a long time, harking back to the All-Star break in fact, that they have been a pretty average side, but results have begun to swing their way of late. They’ve been without their best player in Kawhi Leonard for the past four games, but over that period they’ve notched up a few really impressive wins that have re-established themselves as probably the biggest threat to the Nuggets in the West. It started with a really important two-point win over those Nuggets three games ago, before they backed that up with a thumping 29-point defeat of the Jazz. They subsequently had a stinker of a first half against the Cavs and were down 80-59, but a Paul George inspired comeback ended in a buzzer-beater from the man himself to secure another two-point victory, their third win in a row and sixth in their past seven games. Even without Leonard they appear to have recaptured their mojo, and 7.5 points looks like a really big buffer to give to a team of their quality and in their form. Granted the Suns are finally beginning to play the kind of basketball that they should be capable of lately, but a five-game winning streak was snapped in their latest outing when they went down by eight points to the Pelicans. This should be a really good game between two teams capable of doing plenty of damage in the Western Conference playoffs, and though it’s easy to see why the Suns are favourites, they will be hard-pressed to cover a pretty hefty line against a very good opposition.