Top 5 NBA Finals Betting Tips
The NBA Finals are the pinnacle of the professional basketball season every year, pitting the winners of the Eastern and Western Conference against each other to see who will be the champion of the NBA season. With emotion and excitement running high, there are many different ways you can approach betting on the NBA Finals. If you've never bet on the NBA finals and wondering how to do it, we recommend you to check out our guide on how to bet on the NBA finals first.
Without further ado, here our top five NBA Finals betting tips that could help you get a bang for your buck!
Tip 1 Check the Experience
The NBA Finals is a pressure-packed series. Emotions are high in the loud arenas, and players get hyped based off that. The anticipation is high, and sometimes that all shows on the court. Sometimes, players who haven't been in this situation before aren’t really sure what to expect. Then, they come out cold, play nervous or try to do too much. That's why one of the best NBA Finals betting tips is to look at the experience among the players on both teams.
Of course, the ideal situation is if a team has been together for a while with the same players and has been to the NBA Finals before. In this case, they would have the experience of being in the finals and the experience of doing it together.
Even if that isn't the case, though, having a veteran presence or two who's been to the NBA Finals before can really help the rest of the team know what to expect. He can calm down some of the younger guys and help them play within themselves. This isn't to say that teams that don't have any experience will automatically lose. But, it certainly helps to have that experience on hand.
Tip 2 Check Matchups
The outcome of NBA games is often predicated not just on talent alone, but on defensive and offensive matchups between the two teams involved. So, one of the best NBA Finals betting tips is to research how the two teams match up on the court. First, how did they fare against each other during the regular season? This is a small sample size, of course, since the teams would've only faced each other twice. Those games could've occurred a while ago, too, potentially before players changed teams at the trade deadline.
As a result, you want to look at the matchups on paper. Does one team have a good defensive alignment to shut down the leading scorer on the other team? Or, does one team have a huge offensive advantage based on the fact that they are simply bigger and stronger than the other team?
Matchups can make a difference in the betting lines, too. One team may be favored because of their better overall record but not match up particularly well against their NBA Finals opponent. This could provide you with some good insight on how to take advantage in betting.
Tip 3 Check Home-Away Splits
Some NBA teams play really well at home and really bad on the road. Just about every NBA team has a definitive home-court advantage, but some teams simply can't get it done on the road at all. This is something to look out for when betting, as a team can perform like a completely different team on the road versus at home.
It's very easy to research these home-away splits nowadays, with all the information and stats available online. You don't want to just zone in on one team, though. You want to see what the other team's home-away splits are, too.
For instance, Team A may not be very good on the road, but if Team B isn't that great at home, then Team A might not be at too much of a disadvantage. You can use these home-away splits as an indicator of how individual games might go when you're betting on them.
Tip 4 Get a Feel For the Odds
Know that betting on the NBA Finals is much more than making correct picks. It's also about knowing the odds and understanding whether a bet is worth the risk or not. For example, it might be easy to pick the outright winner of a game if one of the teams is a heavy favorite. But, whether it's worth it to bet on them on the moneyline might be another story. If this heavy favorite is -375 on the moneyline, for example, is it worth it to you to have to bet $375 to win $100 on them?
Step one in successful NBA Finals betting is, of course, picking winners. Step two is taking into account what the odds are and then making the wise choices. This works the other way, too. You want to find the best and most advantageous odds to you so that you can maximize your potential winnings. You leave money on the table if you don't get the best odds for the NBA finals.
Tip 5 Take Advantage of Bonuses
The last NBA Finals betting tips is to always search for and take advantage of the various promotions and bonuses that online sportsbooks offer. For an event such as the NBA Finals, this could be anything from a reload bonus to a parlay boost. The reload bonus works just like a welcome bonus, in that it matches your deposit up to a certain amount. Only this time, instead of being for your initial deposit on the site, it provides you with a match bonus for adding more money into your account.
Parlay boosts work by increasing the payout odds for certain parlay wagers. For example, a three-leg same-game parlay in the NBA Finals might typically have payout odds of +250. If the sportsbook is running a parlay boost promotion, though, those odds could increase to +325. The great part about parlay boosts is that they reward you with more money for making the same exact bet you were going to make anyway. In the example above, a $100 bet would return $325 with the parlay boost as opposed to $250 without it. That $75 difference is a huge deal.
So, when you're betting on the NBA Finals, make sure to research and take advantage of every bonus and promotions that's offered to you.
Bonus Tip
Betting tips are fine,but you know what it's better?
Betting strategies.
Get the most of our betting tips for the NBA finals by checking our our betting strategies for the NBA finals!