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In lieu of our usual NBA betting preview, we’re giving our readers four fun bets to chase for Saturday night’s NBA action. We figured two pretty key things: one, you might not want to bet on every game each night anyways, and two, that your attention could be stolen by the killer UFC fights going on tonight.
Either way, we’re shortening things up for the weekend and testing out a “four bets” column that gives you four of our favorite NBA bets. From straight up picks to the spread or Total, we think these four bets are the best targets for tonight:
Rockets/Bulls Total
Jimmy Butler returns and there is even some talk about Nikola Mirotic making it back tonight, so the Bulls actually will look a lot like themselves tonight.
Hey Jimmy! pic.twitter.com/5JhyEgfZ1v
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) March 5, 2016
That could mean a mild defensive boost at home tonight, but more than anything they should be able to improve on offense and just be more competitive. I don’t see them suddenly locking down a pretty potent Rockets offense (105 points per game), but Houston’s atrocious defense and this game going down at the United Center certainly works in the favor of the Total here. It’s a high one (214.5), but we think targeting the Over makes a good amount of sense.
Spurs Over Kings
The Spurs are undefeated at home (29-0), allow just 92 points per game and have twice smoked the Kings (by 18 and 16 points). That alone puts them in a good spot tonight, but when you look at Sacramento’s defense (giving up 109 points per game), it’s even harder not to love the Spurs. San Antonio takes this matchup all day no matter how you look at it, but being at home puts this over the top. Their spread is pretty big (-13), but seeing as they topped that easily in two previous meetings, we feel good about it happening again.
Pistons Over Knicks
The Knicks are at home tonight, where they tend to be the most dangerous, but we need to really consider how bad this team has been lately at cranking out wins. New York is truly falling apart, having lost three straight games and 8 of their last 10. They’re in a bad way and tonight a Pistons team that is fighting for a playoff spot and could use a bit of a break. With the season series split at the moment, we like Detroit to enforce their will and get the win to get two games above .500. Not having Kristaps Porzingis tonight doesn’t help matters, either. We’ll take the Pistons, straight up.
Kristaps Porzingis (contused left lower leg) will be unavailable tonight versus @DetroitPistons
— NY_KnicksPR (@NY_KnicksPR) March 5, 2016
Wizards/Pacers Total
This one is about two things: superstar talent and pace. John Wall and Paul George both like to put on shows and with both of these teams playing last night, I don’t think being tired comes into play as much as it can sometimes. The other thing is pace, as Washington is 10th in pace in the league right now and Indiana is 7th. That translates to both of these teams running the floor a good amount and getting up a decent amount of shots. Ultimately that means points coming from both sides. Oh, and the previous two meetings had both teams well over 100+ points both times. The Total isn’t even that ambitious here, either (just 208 or 208.5 on most sites), so we definitely love the Over here.
Love/hate our picks for Saturday night’s NBA action? Let us know if it helped you win in the comments below!
