NBA Betting Pick: LA Lakers -2 -115 1H

The Lakers (14-9) have rattled off three straight wins and covers, including beats over the Suns and Pelicans in the In-Season Tournament quarterfinals and semifinals most recently. Los Angeles will face Tyrese Haliburton and Pacers (12-8) for the inaugural title in Las Vegas Saturday afternoon. Indiana too has won three straight, after knocking off the Celtics and Bucks, notably, as underdogs. History says back the Lakers against the first half line. We are betting accordingly.

The angle indicated in the graphic has delivered a statistially significant 15% long-term return on investment and has submitted losing records in only three seasons over the examination period.

We suspect this system's success is rooted in the market's recency bias, which results in lower quality teams with momentum being overpriced, particularly versus the first half spread (we regard recent playoff experience as a proxy for quality). We posit that superior clubs (read: favorites) are capable of exposing such squads' inexperience winning consistently and/or in big games, for the first two periods, anyway.

Based on the signal from the system described above, we are counting the Lakers among our NBA betting picks in In-Season Tournament Championship game action.

Happy betting!!