NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | March 29

After a big day of NBA action on Thursday, just two games will take place on Friday Australia time, with the Hawks first hosting the Celtics at 10.40am AEDT before the Pelicans host the Bucks half an hour later. That gives us the opportunity to really hone in on a couple of games to find our best bets; take a look at all three of them below. 

Over 226.5 total match points | $1.90 with GetSetBet 

Both the Celtics and the Hawks have been high scoring teams this season, both averaging over 119 points per game and sitting in the top five in the NBA in that category. The Hawks also give up plenty of points – the fourth most in the league, in fact – meaning that their games generally see plenty of points. The Celtics, in contrast, are excellent defensively, but with two high scoring teams and one team that concedes lots of points in this game, the line of 226.5 total match points set by NBA betting sites looks a little too low. This is particularly the case when you take a look at these teams’ recent games. Three of the Hawks’ last four games have gone well over this total with at least 238 points being scored, and the solitary exception to that went pretty close at 223. For the Celtics the numbers point even more strongly to the over in this game. Their last four games as well as six of their last seven have gone over this total, most of those pretty comfortably. What’s more, these teams played each other earlier in the week in what was each of their most recent outing, and that game ended in a 120-118 win to the Hawks after an incredible comeback. The Celtics should bounce back and win this game, but it’s worth noting that with an 11-game lead atop the Eastern Conference standings, they don’t have a whole lot to play for and a bit of defensive slippage wouldn’t be a major surprise over the remaining games of the regular season. For the second time in a row, this Celtics vs Hawks matchup should go past the points line. 

Pelicans to win outright | $2.04 with BlueBet

The Bucks could still very easily drop a couple of spots in the standings given the logjam of teams just below them, but with a two-game lead in second spot and ten games to go it feels most likely that they will remain there. That seems like a reasonable spot for the team that most people would say is the second best in the Eastern Conference, but despite where they find themselves in the standings, it’s been a frustrating season at times for the Bucks. They’ve certainly had their moments and can beat any team in the league on any given day, but equally they’ve been unable to string together the kind of form they should be capable of for a really extended period of time. One of the main reasons for that has been their inability to perform nearly as well on the road as they have at home. While they’re 29-8 in Milwaukee, they have lost more games than they’ve won outside it, with a 17-18 road record more in line with that of the teams fighting for a Play-In Tournament spot. On Friday, they have to head to New Orleans to face one of the in-form teams in the league on their home turf. Admittedly, the Pelicans haven’t exactly been dominant at home, with a 20-14 record at the Smoothie King Center. But they are firing on all cylinders of late and have put themselves in with a very good chance of passing the Clippers and securing home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs as the first seed. With a lot more home games than road games in the run home they will be keen to make their court a very tough place to play in the coming weeks, and as underdogs with betting sites against a team which has struggled all season away from home, they look like good value in this one. 

Zion Williamson over 25.5 points | $1.90 with PlayUp 

Now to our final bet for the day and our only player prop; one which is banking on the continuation of some excellent recent form from Zion Williamson. I wouldn’t typically love the matchup against the Bucks, with both Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez making them a team which is often tough to score against in the paint. But this year they’ve been conceding a lot more inside – in fact they are in the bottom half in the league – and that is exactly where Zion does the bulk of his work. Williamson has been in fantastic form of late, and though his points line has been raised by betting agencies as a result, he still looks like a good bet to pass it in this game. At 25.5 that line is nearly three points above his season average, but he has been passing it virtually game in game out of late. Over the weekend he missed it a couple of times, with an anomalous four-point effort against the Heat following a 20-point game against the Magic, but those two aside has passed this number in each of his past nine. In his last two games he has scored 36 and 29 – the latter of those against the Thunder – while he has also surpassed 30 against a couple of other good teams in the Cavaliers and the Clippers. With Brandon Ingram out Williamson has to take on an increased responsibility and that has been evident in the past two games, but even prior to Ingram’s absence he was scoring pretty heavily. But Ingram or not, the facts are that Williamson has passed the line set for him for this game in seven of his last nine outings, which means that the over looks like a good bet in this one.