NBA Playoff Tips

Our best advice for those looking to succeed in the postseason is to treat the NBA Playoffs as an entirely different animal than the NBA Regular Season. In other words, you cannot simply rely on information gathered during the year to get you by in the postseason. You instead need to consider variables that are postseason unique. Some items that fall into this category would include must win situations vs. talent mismatches, coaching adjustments from the previous game vs. existing team philosophy and past playoff trends vs. this years playoff trends. Let’s quickly review these three.

Must win situation vs. talent mismatch - Must win situations can make a team play with tremendous tenacity, but sometimes the talent disparity will outweigh the motivation. A good example may be Game 3 of the Boston vs. Indiana series. Assuming the Pacers win Game 2, the Celts will be in an absolute must win situation when returning to Bean Town. After all, going down 3-0 will virtually end the series. That being said, the hard to keep pace with Pacers may be too much for the Green and White to handle, irrespective of how motivated the Celtics are. Thus, the respective talent mismatch may offset the “must win” situation.

Coaching adjustments from a previous game vs. existing team philosophy - Will a coach radically adjust his team’s approach to compensate for the previous game’s shortcoming? Or will he stick to his guns and go with the same philosophy that put his team there in the first place? This has a particularly strong effect on a game’s total. A good example may be Game 2 of the Milwaukee vs. Detroit match up. Will the Bucks change their offensive approach in an attempt to limit turnovers? Note the Reindeer had an unthinkable 24 turnovers in Game 1, leading to 22 fast break points for the Pistons. Milwaukee’s Terry Porter is now left with a major decision. Should he devise a more conservative offensive game plan for Game 2 in hopes of reducing turnovers and fast break points? If so, the ‘Under’ may be a rock solid call. If Porter decides to continue on with the style of play that put the Bucks there in the first place, the ‘Over’ may again be a gimme’ bet.

Past playoff trends vs. this year’s playoff trends - Carefully balance and ascertain past playoff trends from this years trends. The past is a great indicator of the future, but times do change and more importantly; oddsmakers adjust. Make sure you decipher the trends that still work from the trends that are obsolete. A good example this year may be favorites and the ‘Over’. That is, favorites are 6-2 ATS in the 2004 playoffs and totals reside at 5-3 (o/u). That being said, favorites have not been a profitable long term proposition in the early postseason rounds. In addition, the ‘Under’ has been a far stronger playoff proposition than ‘Over’ spanning the past decade.

All in all, there is a good deal of money to be made in the NBA Playoffs, as long as you understand the dynamics at work and how the Playoffs differ from the Regular Season.