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After Week 6 of the NBA season, the Western Conference is getting most of the buzz with at least three strong contenders for the conference. The marquee matchup of the week will be Tuesday night when the top-two teams in the standings face off. The line hasn’t yet been released for the game, but I expect the Suns to be slight favorites at home.
The Warriors played teams relatively close early in games, with a 10-10 record against the first half spread, before pulling away in the third quarter. Golden State has gone 14-6 against the third-quarter spread with a nearly-unfathomable +29.0 net rating in the third quarter, which is more than double the net rating of the second-best third-quarter team this season. The Warriors lock in on defense after making halftime adjustments and own the league’s best second-half defensive rating by over 10 points per 100 possessions.
The Warriors have the ninth-easiest remaining strength of schedule according to Tankathon, but the eighth-most difficult remaining schedule according to Positive Residual‘s schedule dashboard. The difference likely stems from Positive Residual incorporating variables such as rest status and travel into the SOS formula, and no team is scheduled to travel more miles over the remainder of the year than Golden State’s 41,432.
Steph Curry and Draymond Green lead the field for MVP and Defensive Player of the Year, respectively, and I’ll have another article later this week breaking down the awards races.
The Suns will enter Tuesday’s game on a league-best 16-game winning streak but still trail the Warriors in the standings. Phoenix only went 11-10 ATS so far this year but covered 10 of the 16 games during this winning streak to rebound from a 1-4 ATS start.
Even after a dominant 16-game stretch, the Suns rank behind the Utah Jazz in net rating. The Jazz lead the league in offensive rating, scoring 114.2 points per 100 possessions and boast the highest rebounding rate in the league. Paired with Utah’s typical top-10 defense, the Jazz seem poised to battle the Warriors and Suns for playoff positioning atop the Western Conference throughout the regular season.
All three Western Conference teams rank in the top six of Positive Residual’s rankings of the easiest strength of schedule so far this year, but that may say more about the way that all three teams have won in dominant fashion over most opponents. These teams rank atop the league in net rating so far this season, led by Golden State’s monumental mark of +13.6 points per 100 possessions. Utah, Golden State and Phoenix each rank in the top eight of both offensive and defensive rating and all three had over half of games score Under the listed Total this season.
It is rare to have so many teams with a net rating over +6.0. Last season, only two teams, the Jazz and the Clippers, finished with a net rating of +6.0 or better. Four of the past five seasons included exactly two teams with a net rating above +6.0 according to nba.com, with the 2019-20 season as the lone exception. All these wins for Golden State, Phoenix and Utah means there have been plenty of losses dished out, and only 33% of the league’s teams have been profitable against the spread.
The final team ranked in the top four of championship odds among Western Conference sides is the Los Angeles Lakers, who opened the season as favorites to win the conference but went 11-11 to start the year. The return of LeBron James definitely helps and the Lakers have gone 7-4 SU with James in the lineup, but LA only covered the spread in two of LeBron’s first 11 games. James could be on the verge of righting the ship as he averaged 34 points over his last three games but still has shown concerning evidence that he may finally be experiencing some level of decline. According to Basketball Index‘s year over year tool, LeBron is getting to the rim at a career-low rate so far this season.
One of the more interesting teams in the Western Conference is the Portland Trail Blazers. Portland went just 8-11-1 ATS so far this season but sits in the sixth spot of the Western Conference standings with a +0.1 net rating and a 10-10 record straight up. PointsBet Sportsbook still ranks eight teams ahead of Portland for odds to win the Western Conference, and I don’t think the Blazers can keep up with the top three teams in the conference but could potentially win a playoff series as a four or five seed. The Blazers played a league-high five games with rest disadvantages so far this season with one rest advantage, but Portland will only play in six games at a rest disadvantage compared to seven rest advantages over opponents over the final 62 games of the season, according to Positive Residual. I think this team has a good chance to finish strong and avoid the play-in tournament in the West, especially if Damian Lillard can improve on his 30.8% mark from three-point territory.
Jayson Tatum is another star experiencing a shooting slump this season, with his field goal percentage (39.5%) and three-point accuracy (31.6%) each on pace for career lows. The Celtics still managed to earn an 11-10 record and +1.1 net rating so far this season on the back on a strong defensive performance, as Boston ranks sixth in defensive rating.
The Chicago Bulls saw a slight dip in championship odds from +3000 to +3300 after a 1-3 week that included a 32-point blowout loss to the Indiana Pacers and a surprising defeat to the Houston Rockets. The Bulls still rank in the league’s top-five for defensive rating and own a 13-8 record (both SU and ATS), but the offense struggled last week. Heading into Week 6 of the NBA season, Chicago ranked seventh in offensive rating but only scored 105 points per 100 possessions over four games to drop all the way to 13th in offensive rating this year.
The Bulls ended the week with a three-point home loss to the Miami Heat on Saturday. I’m impressed by Miami’s early-season performance, especially considering how some of the team’s key players haven’t performed up to expectations during a 13-7 start.
Bam Adebayo‘s field goal percentage is down to 51.3%, the lowest mark since his rookie season, and he’s only averaging three assists per game after exceeding five dimes per night in each of the last two seasons. Duncan Robinson is shooting an uncharacteristic 33.9% from beyond the arc to start the season, while Kyle Lowry is on pace for his lowest three-point percentage in over a decade by over three percentage points, mostly due to a horrendous 27.3% mark on wide-open three-pointers. Despite these issues, Miami put up the best net rating (+6.1) in the Eastern Conference so far this season and ranks in the top eight for both offensive and defensive rating.
PointsBet Sportsbook favors the Brooklyn Nets to win the NBA Championship with odds of +300. The Nets lead the Eastern Conference standings with a 14-6 record but covered the spread in under half of the team’s first 20 games. Brooklyn could benefit from a mid-season acquisition or the return of Kyrie Irving, but the Nets currently rank outside the top-10 in offensive rating due to a below-average turnover rate and a league-worst offensive rebounding rate of only 21.2%. The historically dominant offense is taking a backseat to Brooklyn’s defense so far this season, as the Nets have allowed the lowest opposing effective field goal percentage through 20 games.
The Milwaukee Bucks rank second in Eastern Conference odds after a six-game winning streak improved the team’s record to 12-8 (9-11 ATS). Giannis Antentokounmpo continues to add to his game this season, and his +33.0 on-off differential leads all players in the NBA so far this year. The reigning Finals MVP assisted 31.8% of his teammate’s made shots while on the court, which ranks in the 98th percentile at Cleaning the Glass.
Trends:
Favorites own a 160-140-2 record (53.3%) ATS and home teams covered 51% of games, including 53.3% for home favorites to start the year. Favorites of 10 points or more covered just under 50% of games (20-21-1, 48.8%) and went 35-7 (83.33%) straight-up so far this season.
Monday’s games include the biggest spread of the season so far, with the Philadelphia 76ers favored by 16 points over the Orlando Magic. Favorites of 15 points or more struggled to cover such a hefty spread since the start of last season, allowing underdogs to cover over 60% of the time. The 76ers covered the team’s only game laying at least 15 points last season, but the Magic are one of only two squads with a profitable record as dogs against spreads of 15 points or more.
The Los Angeles Clippers played the league’s third-easiest strength of schedule so far this season according to Positive Residual, with only two games at a rest disadvantage against opponents. The Clippers lost both of those games outright as Money Line favorites, including a 94-81 loss to the Pelicans on Nov. 19. Monday’s matchup will be the second half of LA’s third back-to-back this season, and I expect the Pelicans to cover the +9 spread to drop the Clippers to 0-3 ATS when playing without rest.
An interesting trend from early in the season is that teams struggled significantly more on back-to-backs. Teams playing without a rest day went just 31-40-1 (43.66%) ATS so far this year, on pace for the worst ATS record of any season included in the NBC Sports EDGE finder (since 1990-91). It will be interesting to see if the numbers regress as the sample size grows larger or if the increased load management is actually placing a higher importance on rest that books haven’t yet adjusted to. This would be the first season where teams covered under 45% of games when playing without rest since at least 1990-91.
Picks:
Over 60% of my picks hit last week to bring my season record to 82-52-1 (61.19%) for a profit over 40 units. I’m hoping to keep the momentum going with my picks at 8-2 for +6.2 units since Thanksgiving. My only two picks for today are the Magic up to +14.5 and the Pelicans up to +5.5.
EDGE:
Orlando Magic +16 (1 Unit)
New Orleans Pelicans +9 (2 Units)
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