Three Tips to betting the conf finals

[Raji]

One month into the NBA Playoffs and we’re down to the Conference finals. In just two weeks the season will conclude with the Championship Finals as the 2007-08 season winds its way to the finish line.

Let’s take a peek into our database to see what we can expect from teams in the third round of the playoffs. Remember, all results are ATS (Against The Spread) in third round action over the past 17 years, unless stated otherwise.

DOWN BUT NOT OUT

You can blow a good team out once. Twice is not as likely.

As we’ve learned, teams that fail miserably tend to bounce back rather than stay down. In fact, teams off a pointspread loss of more than 10 points are a very profitable 32-19-1 ATS in third round playoff action.

Bring them in off an SU (straight up) upset loss as a favorite and they improve to 20-9-1 ATS. Let these upset losers dress up as dogs off a pointspread loss of more than 10 points and they become a 12-3-1 ATS winning proposition.

BETTER TEAMS MAKE NICE DOGS

Taking points with better teams will seldom put you in harm’s way.

Teams with a better win percentage takings points after a loss are 17-12-1 ATS in this round. Bring them in off a loss of four or more points and they improve to 17-8-1 ATS.

Best of all, when taking four or more points with a better team off a loss of four or more points you have a 10-2-1 ATS winning edge.

RUNNING ON EMPTY

You can hold a good team down, but not forever.

Teams that reach the third round of the playoffs have established themselves as being better than most. When good teams come up with sub par scoring efforts they tend to bounce back in follow-up games.

That’s confirmed by the fact the road teams in Round 3 who scored 78 or fewer points in their previous game are a wallet stretching 14-5-1 ATS. Better yet, if the over/under total in this round is less than 186 points they improve to 13-2 against the number.

There you have it. Three rock-solid betting theories you can hang your hat on throughout the third round of this year’s NBA playoffs.

Raji