Free NBA betting picks: Houston @ New Orleans

Added on Jan 02, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

After a short schedule on New Year’s Day there’s a full slate of games for basketball betting devotees to work with. The Houston Rockets travel to ‘The Big Easy’ to play the New Orleans Hornets, with the home team a -2′ sports betting online favorite. There’s a few things at work here that could represent a good wagering opportunity:

Houston Rockets at New Orleans Hornets
January 2, 5:05 PM Pacific

‘Revenge’ is often an overvalued concept in the NBA, where the long season makes it difficult to isolate games that represent a true ‘payback’ situation. The exception to this are ‘quick turnaround’ revenge spots. We saw an example of this concept over Christmas, where Cleveland won and covered easily on Christmas Day at Atlanta but failed to cover the number in a rematch one day later in their own building. New Orleans played at Houston on 12/29 , losing by 8 as +6 underdogs. While they’ve played since then, beating Miami at home on 12/30, the ‘quick turnaround’ revenge concept should still be valid. Basically, its difficult for an NBA team to win and cover games in quick succession against the same opponent. There are exceptions to this when elite teams play weaker sides, but in this case the Rockets and Hornets are fairly evenly matched. The fact that they both play in the Western Conference further enhances the urgency for the Hornets to avenge the earlier loss.

New Orleans may have the most pronounced home/road disparity of any team in the NBA. They’ve struggled on the road, winning only 2 of their first 15 away games. They’re very good at home, however, where they’ve won 12 of 15. Houston has been a very good underdog this year, with a 11-5 ATS mark but that’s not a particularly significant factor here with a small price on the home favorite. The Hornets will come into this game well rested (they’ve been off since Wednesday) and there’s no reason to think that the dichotomy of their home/road performance won’t continue here.

Bet Houston -2′ over New Orleans