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Thunder Dan's top NBA betting picks and best bets for today's NBA games on 11/15/21. His free picks against the spread, teasers, parlays, and NBA player prop.
So Friday I went big with five total picks and ended up a disappointing 2-3 on the night. But we have 11 more games tonight and I'm ready to get back at it again. My Cavs pulled off the upset and if you follow me on Twitter you likely saw I was on them on Saturday. Today they have Boston again, and it will be tempting to jump on them again but I am not sure I have the stomach for it!
We have almost a full month of data now and I am constantly refining my process and models,. It's a long season and I would strongly encourage everyone to bet responsibly and sustainably so you don't have to sit out at any point if you're discretionary funds dry up. Definitely follow me on Twitter @ThunderDanDFS as I toss out some picks and player props to the public when I get a chance.
In this article, I'll be providing my favorite picks against the spread, game totals, parlays, teasers, and player props for NBA games on Monday, November 15th, 2021. I would highly encourage you to join our RotoBaller premium slack group by signing up for a premium pass!
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Thunder Dan's NBA Best Bets for Today
- Season Record 22-22
- Against the Spread 12-4
- Over/Under 7-8
- Teasers/Parlays 3-10
We continue to crush ATS so far while we are now slightly under .500 on the O/U bets and STILL lagging behind in parlays.
I am NOT including any picks I give out on Twitter on days that this article doesn't run, just as an FYI.
I am not tracking units with these picks. If you're wondering how many units to bet on each pick, just assume I'm betting one unit on each spread, total, or prop and likely only a half unit at most on each parlay or teaser. Here is today's model, which now includes my personal spread calculation. I highlighted four spots in yellow where my odds are significantly different from Vegas and a few of those are going to end up as official picks, while the others you can bet at your own leisure.
One thing you may notice is that I added an AVG +/- column and an ATS margin column. These columns track the season-long trends of the margin by which teams are covering (or not covering) the spread as well as the margin by which they have been going over or under their totals.
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NBA Betting Picks Against the Spread
Phoenix Suns (-3.5) @ Minnesota Timberwolves (222 total)
This is my favorite play on the board, I think. The Suns are the hottest team in the league now that the Warriors lost last night. After a 2-5 start, the defending Western Conference champs have reeled off seven straight wins in November. Even more impressive lately has been that they've been doing it without their star center, Deandre Ayton, who has missed the last five contests.
All our trends line up nicely here. We tried picking on the Timberwolves last week with the Lakers and that backfired, but I trust Phoenix more in this spot. Minnesota is only 3-9 ATS this season, while Phoenix is 8-4. As road favorites, the Suns are a perfect 3-0 and have won those games by an average margin of 17 points. They are simply a better team offensively and defensively than Minnesota and it should show here tonight even if Ayton can't suit up as Kaminsky and McGee have filled in admirably in his absence.
Phoenix won going away last night and rested their starters down the stretch in that game, so I don't worry much about the back-t0-back here. I have them winning by six so only laying 3.5 feels pretty safe here.
The Pick: Suns -3.5 (good up to -5) -115 DraftKings Sportsbook
You'll notice on the chart that Cleveland, Washington, Denver, and Chicago all stand out as picks that the data is backing tonight. There are some flaws with each of these picks, though I may end up on some of them by the end of the night.
Washington is without Bradley Beal AND a lot of the Pelicans statistical data this season is skewed since Brandon Ingram has missed so much time. I like Washington at home but not sure I will back them.
The Cavs are my team and they got there on Saturday, but they still didn't get Love or Lauri back yet and the Celtics should get Al Horford back tonight. That's enough to give me some pause there.
The Nuggets are on a back-to-back but won handily last night. They are probably my favorite here and are somehow +4.5 on the road at Dallas somehow. I like that ML bet at decent odds.
And the Bulls were going to be one of my picks today but they went from +2 to -1 during the time it took me to write this article. You can certainly bet on them and I think they are better than the Lakers right now even without Vucevic, but they are on a B2B and the underdog value is now gone.
NBA Over/Under Betting Picks
Denver Nuggets (+4.5) @ Dallas Mavericks (211 total)
So I will preface this by saying I was watching the Denver game last night and I heard their announcers say in the closing minutes - as the Denver backups were piling it on the poor Portland bench guys - the Nuggets have set a season-high tonight of 118 points scored! They went on to finish with 124 points, a full 11 points more than their previous season-high of 113 against Miami.
Denver is streaking right now with five straight wins despite losing their second-best scorer Michael Porter Jr. a few games ago to an injury, missing Nikola Jokic to a one-game suspension, and not having Will Barton last night during that stretch. They are now 9-4 on the year despite being without Jamal Murray for the entire season! Denver is good! And they have a style of play that really grinds down their opponents as they play smothering defense paired with a well-orchestrated, methodical offense that runs through Nikola Jokic.
So yeah, I like Denver to win and cover here, but that's not the bet. We are going UNDER here today (surprise) as Denver continues to be a team we can target for unders this year. They are 10-3 at going under the spread with a league-high +/- margin of 13.5. When you pair that with the Dallas trend of 7-3-2 on unders and a -6.3 margin, there are a lot of trends working in our favor here.
It would have been nutty to bet the unders on games that are already around 210 last season, but this season, scoring and pace continue to be DOWN across the league. You'll notice on the model that just about every game tonight is trending toward the under, but this game has the strongest indicators by far. This game projects for about 95 possessions tonight, which is tied with the Cleveland-Boston game for the lowest pace on the slate. Oh and that game has a 200-point total! That's about where this one should be, too, give or take a few points.
The Pick: UNDER 211 (good down to 208), -110 DraftKings Sportsbook
Today we tease some underdogs. I don't like teasing favorites across the money line too often otherwise Washington/Phoenix/Chicago would all be viable here as well. We don't know if Damian Lillard or Fred Van Vleet will play in that Portland game but I think it stays close either way and I think the Cavs and Nuggets could win outright, let alone keep it close.
The Pick:: Denver/Cleveland/Toronto +4.5 points teaser (+150 DraftKings Sportsbook)
NBA Betting Picks: Team Stats Matrix
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Here's my team stats matrix for use when betting player props.
For example, Houston allows the most steals per game to opponents this season 2.6 more than the league average.
Thanks for checking this new column out and check back every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the rest of the NBA season! Good luck and bet responsibly!
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