Free Picks: New York Knicks vs. Brooklyn Nets

Three weeks into this unique NBA season, who would have guessed that the perpetually hapless New York Knicks would have the same record as the supercharged Brooklyn Nets? Not many, I wouldn’t think. The 5-6 Knicks have been the definition of an overachiever through 11 games of the Tom Thibodeau regime, and the 5-6 Nets have been the quintessential underachieving team through 11 games of the Steve Nash era. Same record, very different expectations.

Making wagers for the under on any game, especially NBA games, isn’t the most enjoyable of endeavors: you’re essentially cheering against both teams to score on most trips down the court. But if there’s enough value being offered on an under bet that’s looking really good, it’s not the worst thing to dip your toes in the sad pool of under-betting.

But first let’s quickly talk about why we’re not drooling at the -5.5 point spread for the ‘loaded’ Nets against the ‘cursed’ Knicks. With Kyrie Irving AWOL, it’s been up to Kevin Durant to carry the Nets the last couple of games, but considering that this will be a back-to-back for Brooklyn, his availability will be very much in question.

Durant is coming off of an achilles tear, and as such head coach Steve Nash and his staff are going to be careful with their star. This will be Brooklyn’s third back-to-back set of the season; Durant sat during the second leg of the first one and was in quarantine during the second one. We would call mark him down as highly questionable.

And highly questionable translated to betting terms equals a stay away. The Game Total Points Under 218.5 prop at -110 odds on sports betting site 22Bet seems like a much safer option here. The Nets may be the league’s third-highest scoring team, putting up 118.5 a night through 12 games, but they may be without their top two offensive talents on Wednesday night—and they’ll be going against a very stingy Knicks defense that allows just 105.5 points per game, the second-fewest in the league.

That may seem like a shock for the Knicks, who are often the doormats of the league, but not for a team coached by Tom Thibodeau, who took over at MSG this offseason and wasted no time instilling that patented Thibodeau defensive gusto into his guys. When it comes to wagering on the Knicks over the past few weeks, betting the under has been like Kareem’s SkyHook: it’s old reliable.

Knicks games have hit the under in eight straight overall and in nine of their past ten games. New York is also coming in with one days’ rest, and the under has been money in the last seven games when that’s the case. Not to mention that the NBA’s Battle for New York hasn’t hit an over since early January 2018, a run of nine straight unders. New York’s Finest have also hit the under in 21 of their past 26 battles at Madison Square Garden. This is a no-brainer.

• The UNDER has hit in New York’s last 8 straight games
• The UNDER has hit in 9 straight meetings between these teams
• New York games have gone UNDER 9 straight times when they’re the underdog
• The OVER has hit in Brooklyn’s last 5 straight games overall