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By Bradley Owen
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005
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NBA Angles And Trends To Cash In Through The Play-offs
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With the NBA playoffs just around the corner I thought now would be
an appropiate time to look at some winning angles over the last few
seasons. I will be supplying further follow up articles over the coming
weeks which will look at more trends and angles from Round One of the
Conference Championships through to the final itself.
First and foremost you must remember that some teams that make the
playoffs do not deserve to be there. However as eight teams are
required from either Conference it invariably happens that the
lesser teams from the East gain access to the playoffs with
losing records. This season just maybe the exception as presently
in the eight hole are the Sixer’s who are one game over .500.
Compare that to the West and both the seven and eight slot are
held by teams who are 10 games over .500.
I usually divide all 16 teams up in to groups based on win
percentage during the regular season, with group ’A’
being tops.
Group ’A’ .651 and above
Group ’B’ .600 to .649
Group ’C’ .550 to .599
Group ’D’ .549 and below
If the playoffs were to start tomorrow five teams would be
in Group ’A’, San Antonio, Dallas, Seattle, Phoenix all from
the West and Miami the only qualifier from the East.
Clearly you would feel that the linemakers would have these
"top bracketed" teams a point or two above what
the line should be knowing that the public would surely
want to ride these teams most of the way. Well straight
off the bat I can tell you that home teams of -10 or less
that have a win percentage above .650 (Group A) are
104-56 ATS. That’s a 65% winning angle to start with.
Many cappers have discussed the "zig-zag" theory and once again
I anticipated that line makers would action this in to their
lines. One case where the line is possibly inflated towards
the loser of the previous game is when they have lost by
double digits. Clearly the losing team is embarrased and know
that they must perform in the next game with more passion
and drive and not become a door mat for the opposition.
So with this theory in mind let’s have a look inside some
numbers. When these players have time to think over their
performance they bounce back with a concerted effort as
rested road teams off a 20 point or more SU road loss are
31-14 ATS in their next game. Overall, regardless of venue,
I found that NBA playoff teams are 60-32 ATS after a
straight up playoff loss of 22 or more points.
Next up I looked at how teams performed off a loss and shot
poorly or failed to put up signifcant points. I had to
make a cut off point somewhere, so I took 80 points as
the maximum points scored and shot less than 42% from the
field as my first calls. Some interesting trends started
to show. First up, playoff teams off a straight up loss
and scored less than 80 points went 5-16 ATS (2-13 ATS
if on the road) in their next game over the last few
seasons. Playoff teams who lost straight up and shot
less than 40% from the floor went 7-20 ATS in their
follow up game. There’s two angles that are both over
70% plays against.
There must be something about that 80 point barrier as
I found playoff road teams off a straight up loss
where they scored less than 90 points are a nice and
profitable 85-53 ATS play. Take off those games where
the teams scored 79 points or less and are on the road
(2-13) and this gives us, teams off a straight up loss
where they scored between 80 and 89 points inclusive
and are on the road are a wallet filling 83-40 ATS,
that’s a nice 67.75% angle.
Here are two other angles that involve how teams
have fared after posting up scores;
Home teams off a 10 or more point straight up loss
and scored 92 points or less are 47-24 ATS in the
NBA postseason.
Home teams who had a regular season winning percentage
above .500 and are off back-to-back double digit
playoff losses and scored 92 or less points in
their last game are 24-7 ATS, including 12-2 ATS
if they are favorites by 3.5 points or more.
Looking at Round One overall I must draw your attention
to the fact that teams seeded 1, 2 & 3 either at home
or on the road were 19-7-1 ATS (74%) in 2004.
The #8 seed has performed above expections in the
opening game of Round One. Perhaps it’s another
inflated line on the #1 seed from the linemakers or
is it a case of these minows laying it all on the
line first up? Whatever it may be, #8 seeds are 8-2
ATS the last five playoff seasons and a not to
shabby 4-6 straight up.
But I will leave you all with one of my favorite
"play on"" situations for Game One in
Round One of the Conferences. Superior home
favorites that are at least 6 or more wins better
in the regular season are 60-15 ATS.
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