NBA Betting Trends: New York Knicks vs. New Jersey Nets

NBA Betting Trends: New York Knicks vs. New Jersey Nets

Tonight at Madison Square Garden, the clock will be turned back as the New Jersey Nets (9-24) take on the red-hot New York Knicks (16-16). Back on February 4th, the Knicks were receiving 55% of spread bets as 6.5-point favorites against the Nets.  Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire were both in the starting lineup, but the star of the game was an obscure point guard from Harvard named Jeremy Lin.

The 6’3″ point guard came off the bench to score 25 points while hauling in 5 rebounds and dishing out 7 assists. On the strength of this performance, Lin earned a spot in the starting lineup while guiding NY to an 8-1 record. Since then, Linsanity has reached Tebow-like levels with the public jumping on the Knicks bandwagon.

Just two weeks have passed since that game yet seemingly everything has changed. The Knicks opened as a 9.5-point favorite at the market-setting Cris sportsbook and, according to Sports Insights’ NBA Betting Trends, are currently receiving 64% of spread wagers and 65% of moneyline bets. Despite this lop-sided betting, the line has not moved off 9.5.

An important factor to monitor is the health of several key players on each team. Last night Brook Lopez made his season debut for the Nets having missed the first 32 games with a broken foot. However, the team will proceed with caution with their star big man and he will likely not play on the second night of a back-to-back. For the Knicks, Tyson Chandler (back) is listed as probable, while Carmelo Anthony is expected to re-join the team after missing seven games with a groin injury.

Our Premium and All-Pro members have access to breaking injury alerts, but for everybody else make sure to check in with our NBA injury page for the latest updates.

While almost the entire marketplace is shopping this game at -9.5, a handful of books — including Heritage and SIA — are currently offering a line of -10. This once again demonstrates the importance of shopping for the best line.

The following table shows the breakdown of spread betting percentages from our six contributing sportsbooks: