NBA Playoff Betting Strategy

The NBA playoffs are an exciting time for most sports fans. The top teams step up their games in their quest to win an NBA Championship, and superstars look to become legends by adding a title to their resume. While players and teams might be up or down for a game on any given night in the regular season, most players bring their A-game every night during the playoffs, making the intensity level extremely high.

All of this action makes the NBA playoffs very popular among gamblers, too. If you’d like to get in on the NBA playoff action at your favorite online sportsbook, here’s a quick guide to getting started.

Types of NBA Playoff Bets

If you want to be on individual NBA playoff games, you’ll be able to make the same kinds of bets you can make on any basketball game. These bets include spread bets, money line bets, and totals.

Spread bets should be familiar to anyone who has bet on a football game as well as NBA fans. In these bets, the underdog is given a certain number of handicap points that are added to their score in order to make the odds of both teams winning the bet approximately even. A spread bet might look something like this when offered:

Celtics -3 (-110)
Lakers +3 (-110)

In this case, the Celtics are favored by three points. If you bet on the Celtics, they will have to win by four or more points to win the bet; a win by three points would be a push. If the Lakers win, or lose by less than three, a bet on the Lakers is considered a win. In either case, you will need to bet $110 to win $100 – standard for spread bets.

You can also make a money line bet. In this bet, you’re simply betting on who will win the game; however, the odds will have been altered to make one side pay more than the other to compensate. It will usually look something like this:

Celtics -155
Lakers +135

To translate: if you bet $155 on the Celtics, you’ll win $100 if they win the game; if you bet $100 on the Lakers, you’ll win $135. Remember, in a money line bet, the only thing that matters is who wins the game, regardless of the margin of victory. Not only can money line bets be made on an individual game, they’re also available for predicting the winner of an entire seven game series.

Finally, you can also make a total bet, also known as an over/under. In this bet, you simply predict whether the total number of points scored will be higher or lower than the listed total. Usually both options are given odds of around -110, just like with the spread bet.

NBA Playoff Betting Tips

The biggest difference between playoff basketball and regular season games is the amount of scoring. Fewer points are played in the playoffs. This is true for many reasons; the better teams tend to be better defensively than the average team anyway, and the defensive intensity tends to be higher as the games are more important. Officials also generally call less fouls, allowing tighter defense to be played.

If you’re looking for good teams to bet on in the NBA playoffs, look for teams that play tough defense and will generally benefit from the tighter style of play common in playoff basketball. Playoff experience is also often undervalued; teams that have shown playoff success in recent years will likely perform better than their regular season record suggests, provided they have a similar roster as in their other playoff years. These teams often relax slightly in the regular season, but then come out to play at full intensity for the playoffs.