NBA Playoff Wagering – LeBron James Lights it up on the Road

NBA Playoff Wagering – LeBron James Lights It Up On The Road

LeBron James has had an absolutely incredible season, and it’s been one that has its share of statistical quirks. For one, LeBron has been a very different type of player at home than on the road. At home, he’s a well-rounded performer who has played limited minutes but still excelled in nearly every category. On the road, he’s a scoring machine. Check out these stats at home and on the road:

LeBron’s blocks and steals numbers are also higher at home, despite the significant 3.0 less minutes per game. These numbers definitely tell a story of two LeBrons. Aside from being pretty interesting, these numbers are very relevant to the player props that the BetUS sportsbook has been offering since the playoffs began.

For tonight’s game three in Detroit, BetUS is offering the following prop on LeBron James’ performance:

LeBron James Total Points and Assists:
Over  36  Points+Assists       -105
Under  36  Points+Assists    -125

How do LeBron’s home/away numbers affect the possible outcome of tonight’s game? I crunched the numbers, which was a bit tedious, so I won’t repeat the calculations here. Basically, I took the number of possessions LeBron was on the floor and found out his points per possession and his assists per possession. Then I had to estimate how many possessions tonight’s game will have (I had to adjust it for Detroit, who’s a slow-paced team and the fact that it’s the playoffs, which also slows down pace). Finally, I adjusted that number based on how many minutes of the game I expect LeBron to play. In case you’re interested, I estimated that tonight’s game will have 88 possessions and that LeBron will play 41 minutes, which may be a tad conservative.

Using all those adjustments, I looked at how many points + assists LeBron should be expected get tonight. This is where we get back to the relevance of LeBron’s home/away numbers. Using all the regular season games, we could expect LeBron to get a total of 37.4 points + assists. However, when we only look at LeBron’s performance on the road, that number rises to 39.0 points + assists, which is significantly over the BetUS sportsbook line of 36.

In the regular season, Detroit actually managed to really slow LeBron down in both his scoring and his distributing. Using the data from their 4 regular season matchups, we would only expect LeBron to net a total of 34.2 points + assists. However, this trend has not continued in the first two game of this first round playoff series. Using the data from those two games, we would expect an insane 43.5 points + assists. There are a few explanations for this: 1) James may simply be stepping it up for the postseason, which seems totally reasonable. 2) LeBron’s primary defender, Tayshaun Prince, has been bothered by injury, increasing James’ effectiveness. With regards to tonight’s game, I’ve seen reports that Prince may not even play much.

That’s why the smart money is on the over for this prop.