2011-12 NBA Totals Outlook

2011-12 NBA Totals Outlook

This is a companion article to our 2011-12 NBA Betting Outlook which looked at home teams covered the spread in various situations. This article will use the same format, but will focus solely on totals.

As with the 2011-12 Betting Outlook, the only games that we are going to use are regular season games. We'll take a detailed look at post-season trends and patterns when the playoffs are on the horizon.

If we look at all the regular season games of last year, we'd see that 586 went over the total, 637 came in under the total and there were seven pushes or ties. That means that just 47.9% of all regular season games went over the total, which is something to keep in mind before you make an over wager.

The first thing we need to do is break down totals into different numerical ranges to see if we can find any useful trends.

Over/Under Breakdown

Total of 179.5 or less: 7-10-0
Total of 180 to 184.5: 29-32-0
Total of 185 to 189.5: 72-80-1
Total of 190 to 194.5: 107-126-1
Total of 195 to 199.5: 100-79-0
Total of 200 to 204.5: 82-112-2
Total of 205 to 209.5: 82-83-1
Total of 210 to 214.5: 50-50-1
Total of 215 to 219.5: 31-43-0
Total of 220 or more: 15-13-0

The one range that stands out the most is the percentage of games that went over the total in the 195 to 199.5 range, especially when compared to the ranges next to that, as totals in the 190 to 194.5 range went over 45.9% of the time and totals in the 200 to 204.5 range went over just 42.3% of the time.

To simplify things, we can look at totals in just two ranges and say that all games with a total of less than 195 were 215-248-2 (46.4%) and games with totals of 200 or more were 260-301-4 (46.3%) and possibly look at those two ranges alone, which makes more sense than betting everything except games in the 195 to 199.5 range to go over and everything else to go under.

Conferences

The Eastern Conference is typically thought of as being the more physical conference of the two, with teams playing more of a hard-nosed style, while the West is generally believed to be a bit more graceful and the results tend to bear that out.

East vs. East: 177-210-3 (45.4%)
East vs. West: 216-233-1 (48.1%)
West vs. West: 193-194-3(49.9%)

Games involving two Eastern Conference teams were good under bets, while those contests involving a team from each conference also had a slight tendency to stay under the total. It isn't until we get to games with two Western Conference teams that it essentially becomes a toss-up.

Rest and Totals

Here, we'll take a quick look to see if rest has any influence on totals and look at a few situations.

Both teams playing back-to-back: 53-50-1
Both teams with one or two days off: 287-338-5 (45.9%)
Both teams with three or more days off: 8-8-0

We can discount those games where both teams were off for three or more days, as that was essentially the All-Star break, but we see there is a slight over tendency when both teams are playing back-to-back, which gives a little credence to the theory that tired teams pay less attention to defense.

When both teams have the traditional day or two off between games there was a definite tendency to go under the total.

Day of the Week

The last area we'll look at is if the day of the week the game is played has any bearing on the total.

Monday: 65-91-1 (41.7%)
Tuesday: 74-74-2 (50.0%)
Wednesday: 157-126-2 (55.0%)
Thursday: 31-30-0 (50.8%)
Friday: 116-130-1 (47.2%)
Saturday: 81-96-0 (45.8%)
Sunday: 62-90-1 (40.8%)

It's interesting to see that on those days where the public is typically involved the most (Saturday through Monday, just as in football) that those are the lowest percentages of overs. Sunday definitely stands out and it's important to note that a higher percentage of Sunday games are nationally televised than any other day. It's definitely worth keeping an eye on in the upcoming season.

The results presented here were obtained from this year's Stat Attack NBA Basketball 2011-12 program and gives you an idea of the type of research that you can do with the program and why I like them so much.