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I talk to a lot of the best NBA handicappers on a daily basis.  This is great because we can bounce ideas off of one another and you can learn different matchup situations that are worth looking at.

Recently, I was talking to a handicapper who mentioned how NBA teams did when they play those strange back-to-back games against the same teams.

While it doesn’t happen very often, when it does you will find a home game followed by an away game, kind of like a home-and-home series setup in a matter of days that gives the feeling of a rematch for the loser.

And if you are going to learn how to bet the NBA then you have to take a look at any possible angle you can find.

Handicapping NBA Revenge: Regular Season Home-and-Home Rematch Games

His thought was the team that lost the first game was motivated to win the second game, while the team that won would be over-confident after winning the first.  While that sounds good in theory, I wanted to take a deeper look at the numbers.  I only investigated the regular season since in the playoffs you’ll see this a lot, but handicapping the postseason is a different animal.  Here is what I found when I queried all games going back to the 1995 season:

Lost Previous Matchup

SUATSO/U
167-203 (45.1%)193-171-6 (53.0%)181-183-6 (49.7%)

There does appear to be some value in looking to back the team that lost the first game in a home-and-home series. While the loser only goes on to win the rematch game 45.1% of the time, they are covering at a profitable 53% (193-171-6).

Lost Previous Matchup & No Rest

SUATSO/U
58-78 (42.6%)72-64-0 (52.9%)66-68-2 (49.3%)

Next thing I checked was whether or not the results were impacted if the two teams were playing on back-to-back days. Doesn’t seem to matter, as we are basically getting the same results, just a lot smaller sample size.

Lost Previous Away, Playing at Home

SUATSO/U
125-107 (53.9%)115-112-5 (50.7%)116-113-3 (50.7%)

I wanted to find out if it mattered where the team lost the first meeting. The results here show teams that lost the first game on the road and then hosted that same team in the next matchup. As you can see, things got worse for the team playing with revenge, if they lost the first game away from home. They are basically a coin flip at 50.7%, which is no good in the sports betting industry.

Lost Previous Away, Playing at Home & No Rest

SUATSO/U
39-45 (46.4%)37-47-0 (44.0%)39-44-1 (47.0%)

Here we look at teams who lost the first meeting on the road and have to play that same team at home on no rest. Not only do we want to avoid taking teams in this spot, but strongly consider fading them and taking the other side.

Lost Previous Home, Playing Away

SUATSO/U
42-95 (30.7%)77-59-1 (56.6%)64-70-3 (47.8%)

Based on what we have already found out, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see that we want to focus our attention on teams who lost at home and are playing that revenge game on the road. Without factoring in rest into the equation, these teams are hitting a healthy 56.6% against the number, despite the fact that they are only winning the game outright 30.7% of the time.

Lost Previous Home, Playing Away & No Rest

SUATSO/U
19-32 (37.3%)34-17 (66.7%)26-24-1 (52.0%)

Last thing we look at is teams off a loss at home, playing on the road and there is no rest between games. This is where we really narrow it down to a profitable situation, as teams in this spot are a rock-solid 66.7% (34.17) ATS.

This just goes to show you how important it is to look at all the different angles. You can save yourself a lot of money by narrowing your results to know exactly when you should be backing a team and when it’s best to sit back and wait for another opportunity. Read our NBA handicapping guide for more information on how you can break down games to find more winners.