Warriors +2.5 @ Trail Blazers
Moda Center, Portland, OR
May 18, 2019, 6:00 PM
The Trail Blazers will host the Warriors as 2.5 point favorites, after losing games 1 and 2 of the NBA Playoffs Western Conference Finals in Oakland, CA. It has generally been shrewd to back NBA playoff favorites to cover the spread in their next game after two straight up losses. Teams in this spot have delivered a 14% return on investment on a 59% cover rate since 2005.
This profitability to this system improves to a 22% ROI on a record of 29-17-2 ATS in game 3's.
Further, this trend has been an especially profitable 17-6 ATS in the Conference Finals, which is rather remarkable given that other proven long-term biases, like sharp bettors prescience in the playoffs or the home team's advantage in the first two games of series, generally do not hold up during the third round of the NBA postseason.
Similarly, teams off back-to-back losses have been good against the first half number, covering almost 60% of the 290 game sample, for an ROI of about 15%. But when squads on two-game postseason skids are favored against the team that dealt the losses, the cash-in rate improves to 62% and the ROI creeps up to 18%.
Thus, the context appears accommodating for another Portland cover, against the first half and whole game numbers. We are taking the flier on both.
Happy betting!!