Written by :
Published on :
The Toronto Raptors start the season among the bottom three tiers of the Sagarin Ratings.
November 19
Heading into Sunday's game against the lowly Pistons, Toronto rated 88.13 on Sagarin and owned a 5-7 record Straight Up. They were 6-6 Against The Spread.
At home on Sunday, the Raptors opened as a -7.5 home favorite but that number quickly climbed to -9 as 90% or more of the action was on Toronto. That trend continued even with the line movement although the AcePerHead internals show more balanced wagering.
Despite both teams being rated among the lower ten in the league, the Raptors number at home still came out to just shy of 6. That's still an overlay on the opening number of 7.5 and a 3.5 overlay when using the current 9.5 we're seeing at books like Bookmaker.
Some interesting stats: Favorites are 20-7 so far when the number is 6 or greater this season. They are 6-2 when the number is above the 6 and there is an overlay. That's a relatively low sampling but what we have found is that lines off either as overlays or underlays go 13-3 so far this season when above the 6.
Toronto is winning 40% of their games of late. Detroit has won none in their last ten!
The Raptors are 4-0 in the last four meetings, though three of those wins were well within the 9 point spread.
Looking at last season as a gauge since this appears to be a similar .500 Raptors team, we can review how many games were won at home by more than 7 points.
Raptors wins at home by more than 7 points last season beginning in January were 12-9. While not a huge gap, Toronto's ability to win games by this many points at home on 12 occasions does stand out.
Against .500 or under teams, the Raptors wins at home by more than 5 points last season beginning in January amounted to a 10-5 record. We use the number 5 as the they beat the Chicago Bulls by 6 points at home.
With all of this in mind, we were backing Toronto Sunday late afternoon at the -7.5 number although we'd prefer to go against a Pistons team that didn't have their backs so against the wall desperate for a victory.
- Don Shapiro, Gambling911.com
