NBA picks: VSiN expert Jonathan Von Tobel’s Sunday Oct. 30 best bets

VSiN’s resident NBA expert Jonathan Von Tobel shares his best bets and market report every day. Bookmark his NBA best bets page and never miss a day!

Welcome to the daily NBA betting market report, your source for analysis on the betting lines for the day in professional hoops. For updates throughout the day follow me on Twitter, and make sure to subscribe the Hardwood Handicappers podcast!

All game lines via the VSiN NBA Odds page.

Daily Recap

The Oklahoma City might be my favorite team in the league. The kids can absolutely hoop. In the waning seconds of the third quarter a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander bucket give the Thunder a 72-69 lead over the Mavericks. It was the cap on an 8-0 run that Oklahoma City had erupted for after trailing by five a few minutes earlier. To start the fourth quarter Mark Daigneault went with the hockey substitution and replaced four of the five guys on the floor, and the results were disastrous. Dallas ran off on a 26-7 run at the start of the quarter against the Thunder reserves and a 10-point underdog looked dead on the road.

However, trailing by 16 points with 4:48 left in the contest the Thunder closed the game on a blistering 18-2 run. Isaiah Joe – who finished the game with 15 points on 4-of-4 shooting – scored 7 of the 18 points, the most crucial being the tying 3-point make with 15.8 seconds left to go. Then Lu Dort did his thing in the final seconds of regulation to force overtime.

Oklahoma City would go on to win the game outright to improve to 3-3 SU/5-1 ATS on the season. The Thunder’s three wins have come against the Clippers (Twice) and Mavericks, and they have looked extremely competent in their three losses. The price on Oklahoma City to make the playoffs is about 20-1, and that is a bet that would be very much worth making if we knew what the organization’s goals this season were.

Market Report for Sunday, October 30th

* Indicates team is on the second leg of a back-to-back

**Lines are opening numbers

Best Bets

Record: 9-8 | Units: + 0.19 | ROI: + 1.12%

New Orleans Pelicans at Los Angeles Clippers (-2.5, 224.5)

Herb Jones and Zion Williamson are both questionable to play, but it was made clear in reporting on Friday that Williamson would be available tonight against Los Angeles. Expect him to take the floor and expect this number to move in favor of the Pelicans to some extent. I would also expect that this total starts to rise as well with that news, and because of the matchup. New Orleans has a good size advantage here and should be able to work the glass against Los Angeles which has grabbed just 50.3% of available rebounds in its games so far. That should mean more second chance points for the Pelicans as well, something which they do very well as they are second in offensive rebounding (34.9%) and fourth in second chance points per game (17.4).

At this point of the season, especially if Williamson is going to be back on the floor, New Orleans rates as the better team. Kawhi Leonard went back to Los Angeles when the team was on the road and will not play tonight, and the Clippers are struggling to find an identity on offense, and we saw against a team like Phoenix which has a big to work against these forwards they had trouble on defense. I will try to get ahead of the line move here and take the Pelicans on the road, as well as the Over considering the matchup looks like one that could provide some scoring. This is a gamble considering Williamson’s status, but I will buy into reports on Friday that told us this game was the target for his return.

Play: Pelicans (+ 2.5) for 0.5u, OVER (224.5) for 0.5u