Cleveland @ Philadelphia -5 1Q
Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA
March 12, 2019, 4:00PM PDT
On the one hand, the present appears an ideal spot to fade the Cavs against the spread: Cleveland beat the second-best team in basketball (the Toronto Raptors) as 8.5 point home underdogs yesterday, and then immediately hit the road to meet the team tied for the fifth best record in the NBA tonight. The Cavs excellent performance Monday, considered alongside their 25% cumulative win rate this season, suggest to us that disappointment is quite likely this afternoon, facing a high-quality team that is back at 100%.
Consistent with our lean toward the 76ers cover, we note that in the back half of the NBA season, it has indeed proven profitable to fade bad teams off a win. Since 2005, considering only games 41-82 of the regular season, teams with a win rate no better than 30% are 179-235-4 ATS (43%) after a victory. Importantly, the level of profitability associated with taking the other side of such contests holds essentially unchanged when examining only the last quarter of each NBA season.
The system also remains profitable when a bad team off a win is slated as a double-digit underdog in a game played in the back half of the season. Per the following graphic, fading teams from this spot has cashed in at a 55% rate.
Dampening our enthusiasm for Philly though, we note that 15 is a big number, and double-digit NBA favorites have only covered the spread about 48% of the time since 2005. This sobering stat makes us reticent of the big lay. Instead we are betting the Sixers 1Q -5.
Supporting our play on the home boys to cover the 1Q spread, we note that Philly is the best first quarter team in the League, both overall and on their home floor. The Sixers average 31.5 points per first quarter this season at Wells Fargo Center. On the other hand, Cleveland's 25.5 point average first period productivity on the road is good for the number 27 slot. The average home/away-adjusted differential of 6 points implies a one point margin to the 1Q number for today's action; we are comfortable laying the 5.
Happy betting!!