More and more sportsbooks are offering their bettors the opportunity to make bets during commercial breaks. Many of these books are doing all of the big NBA games, and they are doing every single playoff game in some instances. This can be a very fun way to bet, and it can be very profitable if you are able to pick out the right opportunities. Why is this the case? It is mostly because the betting public is not very smart when it comes to these things, and they have no ability to know when a team is just on a run or when a team is going to pull away. In the NBA, everyone makes a run, so betting against the run is a good idea for some people.

In order to understand this, we need only to look at an example from a recent NBA playoff game. The Thunder were at home in game five against Memphis, and they were trailing by 14 in the 3rd quarter. Tayshaun Prince had just thrown down a great dunk, and all of the momentum was with the Grizzlies. If a person hopped on most sites that moment, he could have gotten the Thunder as a nine-point underdog for the game at that moment. It might have been tempting to take Memphis since they were already well clear of that number, but you had to know that Oklahoma City was going to make its own run in order to get right back into the game. If you made that bet, you won easily at the end.

This can be a hard thing to do and it will require you to look past your pre-conceived notions. People who are able to engage in this kind of handicapping will be rewarded, though, and they will have the ability to bring home loads of cash. You just have to be a bit of contrarian, and it helps if you actually watch the games. When you sit down and watch a game, you can get a feel for the ebbs and flows. With that knowledge in hand, you will have the unique ability to spot and target those great moments when the in-game betting line does not match reality. You can jump on it to bring home some good value for yourself.

It is often said that when you make those NBA betting picks, you might actually find value by betting on a team that has lost one of its top players. There may be an overreaction when this happens, and bettors might move too far away from the team that has lost this type of player. With this in mind, in some cases, you might be able to find solid value by spotting those clubs that have lost a good player to an injury or suspension. When is this not the case, though? It is not the case when that player is such an integral part of a team’s offense that all other players get appreciably worse when that player is off the court. This has been seen in a number of different places over the course of the year, and a good bettor will pick up on those things before making NBA picks.

When you watch the Oklahoma City Thunder play without Russell Westbrook, what do you see? This is an important question that you will ultimately have to think about before you bet on a team that loses its point guard. Westbrook was a player that dominated the ball, and he played a ton of minutes for the Thunder. A number of players were made better by not having to play on the ball, and when Westbrook got hurt, things changed. All of a sudden, Kevin Durant had to bring the ball up more, and the Thunder were just not nearly as good overall. Not only did they miss out on the offensive contributions of Westbrook, but they also lost production from many other parts of the club. Overall, it became a very ugly situation.

When you are handicapping the NBA, one of your primary goals is to assign a point value to certain things. How much is a good point guard worth? That is going to be different for every team and every player, but know generally that a good point guard is worth at least a few points. In the case of Westbrook and the Thunder, he might have been worth a half dozen points or more. Don’t underestimate just how much good a guy like Westbrook can do for the rest of a team.

As you make your NBA picks or NBA playoff picks, you may want to think long and hard about how you analyze pace of play. Some people think it is only important to consider pace of play if they are betting on the total. This is not really the case, though. Pace of play can be exceptionally important when betting on lines. This is true for a number of reasons. First, pace can impact how a team is able to cover a big spread or stay within a big spread. In addition, some teams just play better when there is a fast pace. Here are three notes on pace of play.

Officials dictate pace

It does not matter how fast a team wants to play if that team can’t stop fouling people. This is one of the fundamental rules that you have to understand. If you are going to do your NBA betting, then you have to understand whether a team’s style is going to be affected by refs who are whistle happy. This is especially important in the playoffs.

The playoffs bring a lower pace

As you make your NBA playoffs picks, you will see that the pace of the game is routinely slower when the playoffs roll around. Teams focus more on defense, and there are more fouls called. The half court game becomes more important, and when that happens, the pace of the game is going to suffer to some extent.

Pace is function of defense and offense

Too often, people bet on overs or unders on the basis of how well teams defend. This ignores the fact that offenses have a lot to say about the pace of the game. Even good offenses can be low scoring if they are playing a slow pace. You should recognize this before committing yourself to a particular pick.

Occasionally during the playoffs, a team will have tremendous bad fortune. One of their best players will go down with an unexpected injury, and they will have to adjust on the fly. As NBA bettors, we have to try to look at this from every angle possible. If we fail to do that, then we will fail to win when it comes to betting. You might think that it is best to go against the team with the injured stud. This might be true, but it is not necessarily true. In some cases, the market will adjust and it might be better to take the team with the injured player.

What are some of the challenges associated with losing a player? If you are making NBA predictions, then you will know that losing a player can cause a team to have to completely change its mindset and mentality. Where a team might have had a certain identity, like shooting the three or playing lock down defense, it might have to look for new ways to use its talent. When this happens, the team might lose out on more than just the contribution of the player who was injured. They might also see a lack of contribution from all of the other spots on the floor.

There is a flip side to this and it is important. The market could possibly overreact to a player going out. Bettors tend to overestimate how important one player is to a team. This is especially true when that player is a starter, but not the team’s best player. You have to watch to see how the lines adjust. If the market is overvaluing the injury, then they might be undervaluing the team with the injured player. If this is the case, then the savvy individual will make great money by going against those big trends.

If you listen to sports cliches, then you know all about the old tripe in football that it is hard to beat a good team three times. This is one of those cliches that suggests something that is real in all sports. That is, familiarity breeds close games in many cases. When teams begin to recognize and understand the tendencies of other teams, they can make adjustments. This is an especially powerful tool for the team with less talent, since it can make strategic moves to limit the effectiveness of the better club. Most of the time, the better team will simply try to do what it does best.

As you make your NBA playoffs bets and picks, you should be aware that just because a team blows another team out in the first game of the series does not mean that they will do so in every game of the series. Often, a team that continues to beat another team will experience some overconfidence. This can be a tough thing to overcome for many clubs. Overconfident teams tend to take effort for granted, and they tend to miss out on loose balls that might have been theirs if they put in a bit more effort.

Try to remember this as you make your NBA playoffs picks. You can sometimes find value by betting on an underdog late in a series, especially when that underdog has lost a couple of games by big margins earlier in the series. There are some distinct times when familiarity breeds contempt and there are other times when it breeds the sort of parity that leads to very close NBA games. The bettor who ignores this is doomed to failure.

Whenever you are going to make a pick on an NBA playoff series, no matter what series that is, you are going to need to understand how different games can produce different results. Ultimately game two is a much different one than game one. This is true for a number of reasons. First, game one usually comes with a tremendous amount of emotion. In game one, the crowd is ready to go, the favorite is well-rested, and all is good in the world from the better team’s perspective. The underdog will usually get the best punch of the better team. Game two is a bit different, though.

In game two, the favorite will typically have a 1-0 advantage in the series. Though the crowd will still be excited, they will lack the enthusiasm that they had in the first game. More importantly, the underdog will have its back against the wall. Losing another game to go down 0-2 is a tough proposition for most underdogs, and they will come out battling in the second game of the series. This is when you can sometimes see upsets, as the favorite may take its foot off of the gas pedal when it comes to game number two.

As you make your NBA playoffs predictions, you should think about these things. Winning with playoffs bets requires you to be a master of psychology. You have to understand when teams are going to bring grade-A effort. At the end of the day, these are professional athletes, and when faced with a must-win situation, they will typically respond. It is important to note that this is not necessarily true in all situations. It is true, however, in the vast majority of NBA playoffs betting scenarios. The more you understand about this element of psychology, the better your results will ultimately be.