Nets vs Kings Betting Trends: Sacramento Favored for Fifth Time this Year

The Brooklyn Nets continue their West Coast road trip on Tuesday when they travel to Sacramento to face the Kings. This is the third game of their four-game trip in which they’ve gone 1-1 with a win over the Clippers and a loss in their last outing against the Lakers.

They’ll travel to Portland to take on the Blazers on Thursday before returning home to Brooklyn. The Kings enter Tuesday’s contest coming off a home win against the struggling Golden State Warriors. Sacramento has now won three-straight games and four of their last five.

As we look at the Nets vs Kings betting trends, Sacramento is favored by two points in this NBA matchup, which is exactly where the line opened.

The Kings are -135 on the Moneyline, while a win for the Nets would give you a payout of +115. The total for this game opened at 224 and has moved up a few points, sitting at 226.5. Let’s take a deeper dive into this matchup and see where we can find some value.

No Irving, No Problem

The Brooklyn Nets have been without Kyrie Irving for the past six games as he continues to be suspended by the team. After starting the season 2-6 overall, the Nets have now gone 4-2 in those games without Irving. While Irving is undoubtedly one of their best players, it seems that Brooklyn’s defensive intensity has picked up quite a bit without him on the floor.

They own the best defensive rating in the league over that time period with a rating of 99.7. The next closest team is the Memphis Grizzlies who have a rating of 105. That’s quite the drastic jump between the two teams and speaks to what the Nets have been able to do on that side of the ball. Prior to that, Brooklyn owned the 29th-best rating in the league. Yikes.

The defense will be important tonight for the Nets because over their last six games, the Kings have been amongst the NBA scoring leaders with the fourth-best offensive rating.

Sacramento has put up 127, 120 and 122 in their last three games respectively, and are averaging 121.6 points over their last five games. The Kings are also a team that is going to look to push the pace on Tuesday and try to make the Nets guard them in transition.

Hot Start for Brooklyn

If you don’t trust the Nets to cover the full game because you’re worried about what the Kings might be able to do offensively, another Nets vs Kings betting trend you could look at here is to back the Nets in the first half. If you take out their last outing against the Los Angeles Lakers, which was the back end of a back-to-back for Brooklyn, the Nets were 6-1 against the spread in the first half of their last seven games, so they have been starting games really well as of late.

This is also a decent NBA schedule spot for Brooklyn because they come in with equal rest to that of the Kings. Plus, this is the third game of their four-game road trip, meaning they won’t have turned their attention to getting back home quite yet. That’s often an angle to look at when teams are on the final game of a long road trip.

Lastly, before betting on this game, make sure you pay attention to the injury report NBA. Irving will continue to be out for Brooklyn, but Ben Simmons is questionable with a knee injury, Seth Curry may just rest this game and Nic Claxton is dealing with an eye issue. If all of those players do indeed sit this game, the Nets vs Kings betting trend might lean toward the home team.

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