The NBA returns on Tuesday night, and that leads off our 5 observations of interest to basketball bettors.

1. What’s the smart bet in the NBA off the All Star break?  Do you attack the offshore sportsbooks and Vegas boys with favorites or dogs?  The answer has varied the past couple of years.  Last season on the first night back, favorites went 3-4-2, and it is worth noting that all 4 dogs that covered not only won outright but covered by 15 points or more.  But you wouldn’t have expected any of it, considering that on the first day back after 2007’s All Star game favorites went 6-3 against the pointspread, and only won covering dog won outright.  Nothing meaningful to be found in this short sample size.

2. Totals had a similar split.  Last season’s 6-3 to the over wouldn’t have been expected considering that overs only went 4-5 the previous year.  I’ll likely do some more work on this Tuesday morning, exploring another year or two of data to see if there’s more of a pattern than there appears to be,  but it doesn’t look like there’s much there.  Better teams aren’t necessarily going to come out with more enthusiasm than worse teams.  Nor are the defenses ahead of the offense or vice versa. Afraid we all have to actually do our work for the Tuesday night card.

3. One thought that has always made sense in theory is “All Star Momentum Interruption”.  That is, the hot teams have the misfortune of having their momentum derailed by the All Star break, while the 4 to 5 day break is the pause that refreshes a team on a bad run.  There won’t be much to test that theory this season, as there simply aren’t many teams that are on a lengthy winning or losing streak for us to look to turn around.  The Sixers have prevailed in 4 straight games, the Warriors have a 3-game winning streak, and nobody else has won more than 2 in a row.  The 4 teams on losing streaks of more than 2 games are the Knicks (6 games while banged up on a lengthy western trip), the Kings (5 straight losses, to be expected considering they’re playing .204 basketball), Timberwolves (dropping 4 in a row, losing the invaluable Al Jefferson for the season in the process), and aging, fading Pistons (3 consecutive defeats heading into the break).

4. The college game of the night takes place in West Lafayette, Indiana, as the two best teams in the Big 10 match up.  Michigan State has withstood the loss of Raymar Morgan better than Purdue has persevered without Robbie Hummel.  It looks like mono victim Morgan will play, though not start, for the Spartans. Hummel’s weekend return for Purdue at Iowa resulted in only 1 for 7 shooting but despite his gimpy back he offered a lift with his defense and overall presence. This is only the second time all season that Purdue has been favored by less than 6 at home.  In December 2-point home favorite Purdue was humiliated by Duke 76-60.

5. Bettors who held USC +7.5 tickets on Sunday night (present company included) looked to be in pretty good shape in the final minute when Southern Cal’s Daniel Hackett scored and was fouled going to the hoop, as the “and 1″ free throw could have made it a 3-point game.  Alas, two officials saw it different ways and though the play was clearly a block, the erroneous charge call prevailed.  Trojan coach Tim Floyd exploded, storming the court and earning a double technical foul and ejection.  The free throws put the game out of reach, earning Floyd the well-deserved disdain of both Trojan bettors and the Los Angeles Times‘ Adam Rose. 

The Trojan loss was no fun, but we still enjoyed a 60% week against the pointspread for our private clients.  Our NBA is 59.3% against the pointspread on the season, and has won 5 of the previous 6 seasons.  Our college is 57% over nearly 500 plays since the start of the 2006-2007 season when we rejiggered our methods to go much heavier on the stats.   All these results are our actual documented performance as tallied by The Sports Monitor.   We’re entering our highest confidence time of the year and with our “Beyond the Tourneys” special package you can get all our college and NBA plays through the college tournaments and the end of the NBA regular season (we don’t do the NBA playoffs) for less than $8 per day.  Call me at 1-770-649-1078 for rates and details.

Good luck on Tuesday, and be careful.