NBA betting is one of the most popular sports betting disciplines. Basketball is a huge sport all over the world and there’s a basketball league in nearly every single country.
All basketball fans, we totally dig the NBA. NBA players play the game day in and day out.
That also means that the NBA betting markets are extremely sharp. Beating them isn’t easy and you need a lot of knowledge in order to have an edge.
You also have to avoid making the most common mistakes. This list has four of the most common ones, so read on and find out what you might be doing wrong! Bettors can now bet on the NBA at our best NBA USA sportsbooks.
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Overestimating Back-to-Back Matches and Fatigue
Perhaps the most common mistake that many NBA bettors do is overestimating the impact of back-to-back matches. This is almost the same as overestimating the impact of fatigue.
It’s easy to see why this happens. When a team plays games in quick succession. Surely, that means that the rested team will have a big edge, right?
There are cases in which such thinking is completely justified. If a team is on a long trip with a couple of overtimes, it’s important to factor in fatigue. If it’s just a single back-to-back match. However, there are valid enough reasons for ignoring that.
NBA players are some of the fittest guys around and they have the best coaches and physios; so they can get ready in no time. Also, they’ve been in such situations before and they are training for them in advance.
With that in mind, you always need to be objective and look at the specific situation. If a team plays several matches without rest, fatigue is likely to be a factor.
Now, when a team plays one back-to-back match comfortably. It’s important to see it differently. Another tip is that you should check how many minutes the most important players played. If the match wasn’t particularly tight, chances are that they did get a few breaks.
Make sure that you get all the team news as well. Missing key players via short-term injuries is a much bigger factor than having to deal with fatigue!
Having Favorite Teams
Another common NBA betting mistake is having favorite teams that you bet on over and over again. We get it – it’s easy to be a fan. One of the golden rules of online sports betting never to bet like a fan! That shouldn’t take anything away from objective assessments, however. Remember, you need to be as objective as possible if you want to profit from NBA betting.
If at all possible, try not to have any favorites at all or at least try to forget about them when placing your bets. There are two issues with having favorite teams that will skew your thinking and make you less likely to find value in the betting markets.
The first is that you’ll be betting on what you want to happen instead on what you think will happen. You can get a kick out of this if you are a recreational bettor, of course, and if you just like to watch and win if your team does well. If you want to bet seriously, however, you need to be thinking in different terms.
The second issue is that you’ll be spending way too much time on a single team. If you want to do the best possible research, you should focus on more teams more evenly. That way, you’ll have a complex knowledge of the entire situation and be able to make better-informed decisions.
Ignoring Home and Away Advantages
Since NBA teams travel so much and play so many matches. It’s tempting to think that home matches aren’t all that different from away matches. That is not so. You can find teams that are doing better than expected in certain conditions.
This goes both ways – some teams are able to build fortresses at home. While some teams tend to perform better on the road. In other words, it also explains why sportsbooks online shade their lines.
It’s typically hard to understand the specific reasons for each occurrence at first, but it can be any mix of factors.
Some teams have huge fan followings than work magic when present; other teams prefer the solitude and calmness of being away from home. Don’t assume that home advantage is always present – that’s the most crucial takeaway of them all.
The key thing that you should do is look at seasonal trends for each team. Finding such statistics isn’t hard and you can even find them right at many of the best US online sportsbooks, so there are no excuses.
Once you find a trend, try to keep it in mind while placing your bets and also make notes on how it evolves over time. Tracking all that might seem like a lot when you’re first starting out, but it will become your second nature as you become more experienced!
Focusing on a Single Bet Type
The fourth NBA betting mistake that we want to talk about is focusing on a single bet type. It’s an incredibly common mistake. Even some of the most experienced bettors can fall into it, so start avoiding it early!
The point is that, over time, we become so used to a certain type of bets that we tend to forget about the fact that we can bet on something else as well. It then becomes a habit as well. With a match day coming up, you’ll only take a look at the lines you usually look at. This is why one must always consider the mental side of online sports betting.
Then, you determine if you’ll have a bet or not – and that will be it. That’s not the right approach. It’s important to realize that value can surface anywhere and that you should be as open to it as possible. In fact, you should try to look for it even in the more unlikely places as often as possible!
The best US online sportsbooks cover different markets on each NBA match. You don’t need to become an expert on every single one of them, of course. You should be aware of their existence, though, and you should look at all of them after doing your match research as well.
Even if you aren’t fond of a particular market, chances are that a certain line will catch your eye for some reason. If it does, dig in, take a closer look at it and determine if there’s value or not. Don’t push it, but don’t ignore these opportunities either. They are often way better than the overly sharp main markets that everyone cares about first and foremost!
Final Word
NBA betting has millions of die-hard fans all over the world and its popularity is still growing. That’s not surprising at all, but it does mean that getting a good profit is now harder than ever.
Avoiding the most common NBA mistakes is therefore a must. Keep our pointers in mind and be as thorough as possible when doing your NBA research!