Atlanta Hawks +3 @ Charlotte Hornets
We're backing the Hawks cover versus the Hornets, who are the fourth best team in the NBA versus the number and who have rattled of three straight covers (Atlanta is tied with Portland for the title of worst team in the League for bettors).
Supporting our counterintuitive positioning, we note that it has paid to back poor teams ATS versus teams that cover the most in conference action over the last three quarters of the season.
Specifically, from games 21 forward, backing teams with no better than a 40% cover rate has delivered a 14% long-term return on investment against teams in the same conference that beat the number at least 60% of the time.
This system is 145-102-5 ATS, for a 58.7% cover rate since 2004-05 (which is statistically significantly different than the 52.4% breakeven win rate, assuming a standard -110 vigorish).
Happy betting!!