Man, these second-round series are putting us through the ringer. From the Minnesota Timberwolves running the Denver Nuggets out of the Mile High City to Jalen Brunson continuing his torrid stretch, there’s a little something new to talk about just about every minute. And now that BetMGM has released betting data for the second-round series, we can take a look at some odds movement and see how the betting public is reacting to the games. Let’s go over BetMGM’s NBA Playoffs betting insight and check out where things are shifting.
BetMGM NBA Playoffs Betting Insight: NBA Odds Movement
Source: John Ewing of BetMGM
Unsurprisingly, the Timberwolves pulling off two very convincing wins over the Nuggets in Denver — after burying the Suns in four, mind you — has convinced the oddsmakers. Minnesota is now -550 at BetMGM to win the series heading into Game 3, which will be the first game in Minneapolis. The public, however, is not quite ready to toss dirt on the defending champions.
Even with the Nuggets failing to hold serve once at home in the first two games, 53% of bets and a whopping 72% of the money has come in on them to make it to the Western Conference Finals. Maybe its incumbency bias, or maybe the odds have swung too strongly to Minnesota even though that is clearly the better team right now. Maybe it will take a 3-0 lead for the T-Wolves to earn the requisite respect from bettors.
Knicks-Pacers is the only other second-round series with on-court evidence, with New York winning Game 1 in a tight one. MSG’s finest has picked up a bit more juice, opening at -250 to win the series and now up to -400. That has not stopped the money coming their way, though, as BetMGM reports 59% of the handle is on the Knicks despite 58% of the bets going to the Pacers. In other words, the Knick-favored odds may be swaying the casual bettors towards Indiana, but the high rollers are still slightly leaning the No. 2 seed.
The two series that get started Tuesday, Mavericks-Thunder and Cavaliers-Celtics, have not seen as much movement, for obvious reasons (at least relatively speaking). Yes, the Celtics have picked up juice by going from -1400 to -1600, but in the grand scheme of things, they simply went from an embarrassingly high number to another embarrassingly high number. A strong 87% of money is still going to Boston — anything else would be nonsensical, frankly. That said, the Cavs are getting a lot of small bets, earning 74% of the bet quantity thus far.
Odds for the Thunder have increased slightly, going from -120 to -125. The bet split for their series with Dallas is close to dead even, while the money is going to Oklahoma City by a decent margin of about two-thirds.
All told, the massive odds shift is not leading to a huge amount of movement in bettor behavior, interestingly enough.
