The NBA Finals – playing the Under
129 and 135. These are the number of points that the top team in the NBA Golden State Warriors and the defending champions Cleveland Cavaliers scored finishing their respective conference finals series. No overtime. Just a regular day at work for two of the most prolific offenses in recent memory. Both teams scored over 9,000 points during the regular season. They ranked number two and number three in 3-pt shooting percentage. Their offensive ratings and true shooting percentages were the best and third best in the league. Both teams have shot over 50 percent in the playoffs, scoring in triple digits in each of the combined 25 games played thus far. Now they cross swords in the NBA Finals.
Thinking over and under
It’s completely natural to feel good betting on the over points. It’s almost exactly the same mental position as when riding with the favorite, as it’s normal to think that the better team will win. It is also much more fun to cheer for points and not for misses. Even the most experienced punters, who had trained their minds not to give that positive bias to take over, even they have to remain aware of it. And I don’t mean just the NBA Finals or the playoffs, this applies to any NBA game and wider.
It’s awfully hard not to think over points when such two unstoppable offenses collide, at least within the expected total point lines that the books will try to attract us with. Still, I’ll try to make a case for the under points in this series. With the right outcomes, I believe there’s much more chance to profit there, as Vegas will likely more aggressively shut the over money flow if the teams open up the series scorching hot. This is the third time these two teams meet in the NBA Finals with similar circumstances, we’ll take a look at the previous two clashes. But first, let me help you understand how far the NBA has gone in these two years since the first Finals between the two.
Points surge
Have you noticed how many different individual and team records have been broken this year? This has to be the best generation of NBA players in history with so many of them. Erm, not many of them came on the defensive end. But who cares about these, right? The fans are happy when the points are dropping and there were heavy rainfalls with fewer droplets than some of the games with points. Naturally, when almost all teams in the league are looking to outscore each other, the scoring records are going to fall. Oh and all the other stats will increase – assists and rebounds the most. Heck, we may even get a player to average a triple-double if a team allows him to play alone. It’s great for the media and exciting for the fans, and it increases the TV ratings and total revenue.
The increase in scoring stems from the no-handcheck rule that overprotected the outside shooters. It took a few years for the basketball academies to build us capable shooting ball handlers, so now almost every team has a scoring point-guard and the league mostly revolves around them, or the point-forwards, another positions hybrid that came as a product of that change. Of course, the advancement in the sports analytics and the timely success of the Warriors to justify the theory turned tentative movement into avalanche.
How much of an increase have we witnessed in these two years? A lot. In Game 1 of the 2014/15 NBA Finals, the line was set at 203.5 and gradually declined to finish at 193.5. Last year, the first game’s total points line was 211 at the tipoff, while Game 7 offered you to bet over/under 205 total points. This year, the line for the first game is set at 225.5. That’s more than a 20-point increase. Yes, the teams are not the same, but it’s still a massive surge.
O/U records and trends
As the teams and the game changed, the bookmakers would not sit tight. Despite Warriors having #1 offense, they went 41-53 against the over/under overall, combining the regular season (32-50) and the playoffs (9-3). The Cavaliers have been profitable with the over bets, going 56-38-1 overall and 47-34-1 during the regular season, 9-4 in the playoffs. Yet, I can’t shed the thought that much of the success with the over came from their indifference toward playing much defense as they knew they are dominant force in the East. The Cavs are well experienced and surely understand that they’ll need to play both sides of the ball versus the Golden State Warriors. After all, that’s what landed them the rings last time around.
You surely noticed the downward trending line movements in both of the previous NBA Finals series as I’ve already mentioned the closing projected totals in the first and the last game in the last two years. This was a result of teams going 2-3-1 (two overtime games) in 2015 Finals, and 2-4-1 last year, against the over/under. It was no fluke either.
The games were played at deliberately slowed down pace as Cleveland did all they could to make it a possession-by-possession game. They lost the first time, but didn’t stray off it much on the next go, giving up just 99.8 points to the free scoring Warriors. Do you really believe that they are now confident enough to try to outscore the Warriors after seeing the havoc that they created on their path to the Finals? I don’t.
What does the math say?
Let’s put all the thinking aside and take a look at what the mathematical model has to say. For the first game of the NBA Finals series, the fair statistical number is 225.5, dead on what the bookmakers have been offering us. This doesn’t account for Iguodala’s and Pachulia’s minor injuries, as they’ll have more than enough time to heal.
This also doesn’t adjust for the importance of the game and the trends, but even if I go with the positive under bias, this line will not offer enough value for me to go below the projected line for the Game 1. But the same goes for the over, and the public bettors have been taking the plus side by large margin.
Sit back and enjoy watching the first of the hopefully seven meetings between the two best basketball teams in the world, but keep one eye on how the Cavs play it. If they go with the old recipe, look for the under chances later in the series. However, even if this short look didn’t sway you to wager on the misses, you should be aware that the over side has nothing to offer given the total line, despite of how it might look at the first glance.
