This is my New Years contribution to the people of Freaksforum. There is an old NBA betting angle known as the rested home team.
Now everyone knows that the home team has an edge in any sporting event and this edge is as much as 60-65 % in the NBA. Some of the reasons given are the home crowd, familiar with surroundings, getting the slight bias on the referees calls, and of course the amount of time the team had to rest.
I will let you do your own research on NBA crowd ratings and NBA referee bias. In an attempt to control familiarity I will only rate games here that are Eastern conference team vs Western conference team since they only play each other twice a year, one at each teams home arena.
Now for the qualifications for a rested home team.
1) The visiting team must have played a road game on the previous day. (In other words they are playing the second game of back to back road games.)
2) The home team must have had an off day on the previous day that was not a travel day. (By not a travel day I mean their previous game was a home game or they have had 2 or more days since their previous game if it was an away game.)
I will list all the games that qualify once a week. I may not be available to update the pointspreads every day. I will keep a running tally of my record based on the pointspreads given on the links on this forum. I realize we will be laying some big numbers on obvious favorites. The goal is isolate the best plays available and to track their record. I would not recommend playing these picks blindly but rather in combination with other factors of your own choice.
The play is always on the home team. There are 4 games this week that qualify.
Wednesday Jan 12, 2011
Sacramento @ Boston
New York @ Utah
Thursday 1/13/11
Miami @ Denver
Saturday 1/15/11
Cleveland @ Denver