The NBA is back and has mostly returned to its pre-pandemic form; visually, at least.
If you didn’t notice, fans are back in arenas! But I guess that was the case for several teams during last season’s 72-game slate, and even more so for the few teams that benefitted from near full-capacity arenas as they advanced in the playoffs. Also important to point out (maybe not), the players have returned to their extremely stuffed, elbow-restrictive, bench-seating arrangement along the sideline, while photographers are once again planted along the baseline ready to sacrifice a knee to the face for a few good shots.
For all the optical differences that we can spot between last season’s broadcast and today’s, not all that much has changed in regards to the on-court product. Chief among them is the heavy number of twists and turns throughout the course of the game. In short, no big leads are safe. Relative to betting, these constant shifts could make for some interesting in-game wagers if you’ve got the courage to do so.
Just a few days into the season, we’ve already seen enough evidence to make live-betting a bit more enticing. During Wednesday’s NBA slate, the Phoenix Suns built a 16-point lead over the Denver Nuggets with 1:27 left in the first half, but found themselves trailing Denver just over four minutes into the third quarter; that’s a 17-point swing in less than six minutes of action. That same day, the Indiana Pacers took a 23-point lead over the Charlotte Hornets at the 9:49 mark of the third quarter, only for that lead to completely vanish by the 3:07 mark of that same quarter after Kelly Oubre Jr. hit a three to put Charlotte up by one. And on Thursday night, the Golden State Warriors’ 18-point cushion against the Los Angeles Clippers midway through the second quarter was turned into a two-point deficit by halftime.
Fifteen to 20-point margins are commonplace in today’s game and have been over the years. However, the pace at which the game is played and the superiority of the three-point shot are some developments that have generated stretches during games in which these huge leads can dwindle just as quickly as they were produced.
The Pacers and Suns would go on to lose their games while the Warriors would recover in time to steal a win, but the point remains the same. There are windows in every game where you could sneak a low-risk, high-reward bet as the lines move throughout. Think: “which players in this matchup have the ability to get their team back in this game?” Or, “is the winning team young and inexperienced enough to completely fold if they start to lose momentum?” You get the idea. Do your homework before you pull the trigger, though, or this exercise could turn into poorly spent money.
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