NBA Heading to the Finals: Complete Guide to Basketball Betting
NBA Heading to the Finals: Complete Guide to Basketball Betting
The 2025 NBA Playoffs have reached a crucial stage: the Conference Finals are officially underway, and the level of competition is off the charts. In the West, the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, coming off an outstanding regular season, are facing the upstart Minnesota Timberwolves. In the East, the New York Knicks are taking on the Indiana Pacers after knocking out the defending champions, the Boston Celtics. With four strong teams still in the hunt for the title, fans and bettors alike are eager to see who will punch their ticket to the Finals.
But how does basketball betting actually work? What are the main types of bets, and how do you read the odds? In this article, we’ll break down the most common betting options and take a look at tools like oddschecker that help compare odds across different sportsbooks.
It’s useful to identify the most favorable lines, depending on how each operator prices the event.
Match outcome Bet:
In basketball, 1×2 bets are the primary type of wager, but there are differences from those kinds of bets in football. The most surprising thing is that a draw between the two teams is not considered in basketball. In order to understand this bet, one needs to introduce the concept of the “point spread” between the two teams competing. If we choose 1, we are betting that the home team will win the match with a point difference of at least 6 points compared to the away team’s score. If we choose 2, we are betting on the opposite. Choosing X means we are betting that one of the teams will win the game, but with a point difference of no more than 5 points.
Outcome at the End of Each Quarter
A basketball game lasts 40 minutes (48 minutes for the NBA), but you may also place bets on individual quarters. As with full-time bets cited above, point spreads must be considered for quarter bets. The main difference is that the point spread is smaller, given that the period of time under consideration is shorter. So, when you choose 1 or 2 as the result of a single quarter, you are betting that the home or away team will be ahead by at least 3 points. Choosing X means you are betting that the point spread between the two teams in that quarter will be 2 points or less.
Betting with Handicap
When you choose the handicap, you usually give one of the teams a point advantage or disadvantage before the match starts. For basketball, in handicap betting, you can choose either 1H or 2H (betting on the home or away team). In addition, a value is added in parentheses, such as 2H (4.5) or 1H (7.5): the numbers in parentheses represent the point spread assigned to the chosen team. To understand how handicap betting works in basketball, let’s make an example: there’s a match between Team A and Team B, where we consider both the 1H (-7.5) bet and the 2H (+7.5) bet.
- Case 1H (-7.5): The bet tells us that the away team, Team B, starts with a 7.5-point advantage over Team A. If we bet on Team A (1H), we win only if Team B wins the match by at least 8 points (to overcome the 7.5-point handicap).
- Case 2H (+7.5): The bet tells us that the home team, Team A, starts with a 7.5-point advantage over Team B. If we bet on Team B (2H), we win only if they win the match by at least 8 points.
Now that the NBA has reached the Conference Finals, predicting who will make it to the Finals is no easy task. One thing is certain: fans can expect some must-watch matchups over the next few games.
