NBA Best Over/Under Teams: Who’s Hot, Who’s Not

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The NBA continues to evolve into a scorers league and the abundance of offensive talent going around has led to ever-increasing totals across the board. Let’s take a look at the Top 5 best Over/Under Teams in the NBA right now to see where you should look when betting totals.

Best Over Teams

The Golden State Warriors currently own the best Overs strike rate in the NBA, clearing their full game market number in 61.1% of their games to date.

This isn’t too surprising when you look at their team profile this season. The Warriors rank 1st in pace of play and have been one of the worst defensive teams on the road this season, which is a large reason why their Totals are so heavily skewed to the Overs on the season.

The Warriors are 20-6-1 (76.9%) to the Over on the road this season, clearing the closing number by an average of 8.1 points.

The second best Overs team for totals bettors this season has been the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are 33-22 (60%) when it comes to clearing the market number in their games.

Again, not surprising when you consider that the Thunder are 2nd in the league in pace of play and have developed into the best three-point shooting team in the league to match.

Since the start of the new year the Thunder are 1st in 3-point accuracy (40.3%) and are also 8th in “Effective Field Goal Percentage”. They’re also 1st in points per possession and 3rd in half-court efficiency in that span.

The third best Overs team in the league this season are the lowly-ranked San Antonio Spurs.

The Spurs have gone 33-23-2 (58.9%) to the Overs so far this season, which again, is predicated on being a top-5 team in pace of play but coupled with one of the worst defenses in the NBA.

San Antonio owns a 120.0 Defensive Rating on the current campaign, which is comfortably the worst efficiency in the league. In fact, the gap between them and the 29th worst Defensive Rating (Detroit Pistons) is the same as the gap between 7th (Phoenix Suns) and 21st (Atlanta Hawks).

Next up are the Philadelphia 76ers, who have gone 32-23-1 (58.2%) to the Overs on closing markets this season.

A lot of Philadelphia’s success in cashing for Overs bettors has come on low totals in games where Joel Embiid isn’t in the lineup. Embiid’s elite rim protection is on factor why their games go Over when he’s not in the lineup, but the other is the faster pace they play without him with a lot more of their game coming in transition.

In games where Embiid has not played the 76ers are 6-2 (75%) to the Overs, while they’re 26-21-1 (54%) when he is in the lineup.

Rounding off the Top-5 best Overs teams in the league are the Utah Jazz 34-25-1 (56.6%).

The Jazz started the season as the most underrated offense in the league as the markets had a tough time projecting how the new-look roster would operate under first time head coach Will Hardy.

The team will continue to play with similar schemes despite their roster turnover and the projected decline in defensive efficiency should still leave a path for Overs to be successful in their games moving forward.

Best Under Teams

The LA Clippers are the league’s best Unders team so far this season, going 34-25 (57.6%) to the Under on closing totals.

The Clippers have been a bottom-5 team in pace of play this season and have combined a top-10 defense with a bottom-10 offense. Their offensive struggles have largely come down to the mixed lineups and constant absence of Kawhi Leonard and/or Paul George in the early parts of the season.

The second best Unders team so far has been the Chicago Bulls, who have gone 32-24 (57.1%) to the Under.

The Bulls defense has remained an undervalued commodity this season and while they aren’t an elite unit at that end of the floor they are still better than the market suggests.

Their offense however simply isn’t built to be competitive or efficient in the modern NBA. They are 30th in 3-point frequency per game and 25th in 3-point efficiency on the season, which in turn makes them too predictable for defenses who can pack the paint and take away the space for them to operate in the midrange.

The Miami Heat are the third best Unders team on the current season as they’ve gone 32-26 (55.2%) on full game Unders so far this season.

The Heat are 28th in pace of play and have the rare distinction of being a top-5 defense while owning a bottom-5 offense. Their offensive limitations mean they’ll continue to languish in that department and when it’s all said and done they could finish the regular season as the best Unders team in the NBA.

Next in line on the Unders list are the Cleveland Cavaliers who are 33-27 (55%) to the Unders this season.

The Cavs own the number one rated defense in the NBA and are 30th in pace of play. Despite owning the lowest average total per game they still stay Under at a high clip and their offensive road woes also play a part in helping them to more Unders than Overs on the season.

The fifth best Unders team this season is currently the Memphis Grizzlies. The Grizzlies are 25-29-2 (53.7%) to the Under and that’s largely because of the fact they gone Under the full game number in 10 of their last 12 games.

The Grizzlies operate as a bottom-10 team in half-court offense and losing Steven Adams has magnified those issues given what he brings to the table in terms of offensive rebounding and second chance opportunities.

When they’re back at full strength this team should go back to being a high scoring unit once more but those inflated totals might be valuable for Unders bettors for a little while longer yet.

While there’s no pattern to market totals based on NBA standings by conference we can clearly see a direct correlation between teams pace of play as the key NBA team stats that dictate their strike rate on Overs or Unders.

Be sure to check back and see how the Best Over/Under teams perform in the marketplace in the final months of the regular season.
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