How NBA handicapping has changed in the 66-game schedule

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  • February 17, 2012 11:13AM ET
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Normally the lines for the next day’s NBA games start trickling out by around 3 p.m. ET. But for Thursday’s three games - Nets-Pacers, Celtics-Bulls and Clippers-Trail Blazers - there wasn’t a single spread posted within 24 hours of tipoff.

Welcome to the jam-packed, 66-game NBA schedule.

Here’s how the NBA handicapping landscape has changed during the 2011-12 lockout-shortened season:

Fear of the unknown

Thursday’s trio of games was a perfect storm. Five of the six teams played the night before, making handicapping somewhat dangerous because of a potential big injury suffered Wednesday or a multiple-overtime result that would leave a team drained the next night. It's always been a danger when taking the early odds for the second half of back-to-back games, but it's even more prominent in the NBA this season.

Injury bug infestation

And speaking of injuries, there were some vital ones that would have affected the spread for Thursday’s game.

Indiana’s Danny Granger was a game-time call on Wednesday – he didn’t play vs. Cleveland – and obviously oddsmakers weren’t about to put a number on the Nets-Pacers game without knowing the status of Indiana’s top scorer.

Ditto for the Clippers-Trail Blazers spread because Portland’s LaMarcus Aldridge, the Blazers’ top scorer, sat out with an injury Wednesday. And while the Bulls didn’t play Wednesday, the status of Derrick Rose remained up in the air for the Celtics game after Rose had missed the previous three games with back spasms.

Depth is the difference

Sometimes those injuries can torpedo a team, like the Nuggets, who have struggled since leading scorer Danilo Gallinari went down. Sometimes injuries, however, can be the impetus for a surge. The Knicks’ Jeremy Lin wouldn’t be a global sensation and leading New York to seven wins in a row if the injured Carmelo Anthony was out there stealing shots.

Making sure a team has a solid second - and even third - option behind an injured starter is even more important as the season wears on and more ailments pile up.

Forest through the trees

Because there are so many games squeezed into such a tight schedule there is a lot more work to do each day for cappers to find value.

With less time in between games, inside info from local papers and beat writers is harder to come by, especially if you’re trying to take advantage of the early lines. In past seasons, you could get two days of coverage on a team in between games. But with the frantic pace of the schedule, there is less time to learn about your bets.

Three’s a crowd

Basketball bettors are getting the chance to handicap teams playing back-to-back-to-back sets this season, a situation they haven’t seen since the last lockout-shortened season.

You can find nice value in overnight lines because often there is plenty of movement from when odds are released to where they sit in the morning.

The most unusual three-games-in-three-nights result this year was from Feb. 12-14, when Miami won and covered easily at Atlanta, at Milwaukee and at Indiana. That’s two potential playoff teams Miami beat as well as a Bucks club that had the Heat’s number twice previously this season.

The Heat became the first NBA team in 33 years to win three road games in three nights.

Running on empty

Perhaps the top trend this season is that tired legs usually equal lousy shooting, which then leads to low-scoring games and plenty of unders - although books have certainly adjusted totals accordingly.

Shooting percentages are down more than a percentage point and around two percentage points on 3-pointers from last season. Last year, 11 teams averaged at least 100 points, led by the Denver Nuggets (107.5). This season, just three teams average 100 or more points, led by Miami’s 103.5 points per game. The Heat are just 14-14-2 over/under entering the weekend.

No team averaged less than 90 points a game a season ago but four are below that mark this year, with wretched Charlotte at the bottom at 86.5 points a night.

Paying attention to shooting slumps and how the schedule will impact a team's ability to fix them is becoming more important for NBA cappers.