Milwaukee Bucks -9 @ Cleveland Cavaliers
Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
March 20, 2019, 4:00PM PDT
We have observed compelling support for the Bucks road cover this afternoon. As such we are comfortable laying the just shy of double-digits and backing the best team in the business to beat the number.
First, our computer simulation programs expects Milwaukee to handle Cleveland easily. This work calls for a 14-20 point win, suggesting significant value with the road favorites from this spot. Additionally, we note several historically profitable betting systems (powered by data from BetLabsSports.com) that uniformly endorse an ATS win for the Bucks in today's contest.
First, we must point out that, generally speaking, elite NBA teams tend to struggle versus the number facing the bottom-of-the-barrel (showdowns between squads with win rates of at least 70% and teams that win no better than three of every ten games have gone the bad team's way ATS 56% of time since 2005, delivering a return on investment of 8%).
We must qualify this result though, as late in the season this trend exactly reverses. Either as a byproduct of jockeying to improve and/or solidify playoff seedings, or maybe just in an effort to work up a good lather heading into the post-season, the best teams tend to cover the spread at a notably high rate versus the worst teams over the last baker's dozen games of the regular season, notching a 21-10 ATS record since 2005 from this position.
When we relax the criteria to increase the sample size (by looking at teams with at least a 65% win rate facing teams with up to a 35% win rate), the result is unchanged...the strategy has been good for a 66% cash-in rate and a 29% ROI under the revised criteria.
Separately, broadly speaking, home dogs have been great fades during the back stretch of the NBA season. Betting against teams taking points in their own building in games 70-82 has delivered a 7% ROI since 2005, on a record of 439-361-14 ATS. Further, when divisional rivals square up late in the season, as is the case for this afternoon's meeting, the historical profitability of backing the road fav is an even greater 9%, on a 104-83-3 ATS record.
Finally, we have reported several times in the recent past on a system on our roster predicated on betting against bad teams at home after a win (see here for one example). This system too highlights Milwaukee this afternoon.
Thus, as far we can tell, all signs point to an easy night for Milwaukee. We are positioned accordingly.
Happy betting!!