 Friday Picks and looking for Mo
f only making money in the playoffs were as simple as figuring out the better team and backing them. Over the course of a seven game series, though, there is an ugly monster that repeatedly rears its ugly head and causes problems - momentum.
Momentum can shift several times in a single series, so a successful bettor almost has to be an amateur psychologist to figure out which team is about to step up and win. Doing that well is more of an art than a science, but here are five tips that might help you get a handle on which team will show up and let you cash in.
Who needs it more?
This sounds simple, but that isn't always the case. You need to figure out which team has more on the line in a game. Where it gets tough, though, is that that isn't always the team that needs to stave off elimination. Two NHL playoff series illustrate this well. San Jose beat Dallas in Game 4 of their series after losing the first three games.
In that case San Jose was the better team in the standings and had been expected to win, so they needed a win badly to redeem themselves and salvage any hope. Dallas didn't have nearly the same need because they didn't expect or need a sweep. The Detroit - Colorado series was different. Detroit was up 3-0, but they were also the ones that needed it more. Colorado was injured and didn't have a lot of reasons for hope. Detroit has realistic expectations of heading to the finals, but they are an older team and could use all the rest they can get. For them a sweep was very important and it showed - they won 8-2.
Positive anger
When a series gets rough, the teams are going to get angry. Anger is a tough thing in sports, though. If it is channeled well it can make a good team better. If it gets out of hand, though, it can create a sure loss from a probable win. Looking for signs of which team is handling the situation with a more positive air can often point you to the winner. This can change from game to game in a particularly hostile playoff series, as it has in the Cleveland - Washington series in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
Go local
When you want to get a feel for how teams are feeling there is no better place to go than the local newspapers and sportscasts that cover them. Sure, you get some biased coverage entirely lacking in objectivity. If you can look beyond that, though, you can often get a sense of the spirit of the teams. The local writers and broadcasters are the ones who spend time around the team every day over the whole season, so they know better than anyone if something is off. Forums or message boards are other good places to get the overall feel surrounding a team. You just have to be careful not to buy into the conspiracy theories or unsubstantiated hype that can run rampant in such places.
The time/talent continuum
In many series, and particularly in the first two rounds, there is a clear talent gap between the competing teams. The fewer games remaining in a series, the better the chances that the talent advantage will lead to a win.
You can look at the first round NBA series between Detroit and Philadelphia for a perfect example. Detroit sleepwalked into the playoffs and they ran into a Sixers team that was hungry and had nothing to lose. Through four games the series was tied. Detroit was a vastly superior team, though, and had a talent advantage across the board. Because of that it was a very logical bet that Detroit was going to eventually win.
That meant that they were going to, at the very least, win two of the last three games. With that reasonable assumption in place you can bet accordingly. Momentum was impossible to read in the first four games, but the results gave you a big clue about the last three games. As it turned out the Pistons won in six.
When in doubt, home cooking counts
Home court or ice advantage is huge in the playoffs. No matter what kind of support a team gets during the regular season, a tense playoff series will bring out the fans in full force, and they will be crazy. A visiting team can obviously win a game if momentum or other factors are in their favor. If all other things seem equal, though, then taking the home team is almost always a good idea. Doing anything else can just be over thinking the situation.
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