Which teams were best, worst against the spread in first half of NBA season?

Some NBA teams are good, some NBA teams are bad. Some NBA teams are good at covering. Some NBA teams are bad at covering. It’s the circle of life, people. Does being a bad NBA team necessarily mean said team never covers? Not always. This season has been pretty chalky in terms of the best and worst teams against the spread. With the second half of the season on the way Wednesday, DraftKings Sportsbook sent us over a bunch of betting splits. A few of those tables feature the top 5 best and worst teams against the spread in the first half. Let’s take a look and break it down a bit.

Prior to the last few weeks before the break, the Utah Jazz seemed unbeatable against the spread. It is worth noting that the Jazz were 1-3 ATS before the ASB and just had three players in the All-Star Game. I’m not saying the Jazz will tank in the second half, but things don’t get any easier. Or does it? The Jazz have an insanely easy second-half schedule. We should see Utah continue to smash ATS.

The New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls are outliers as two decent teams who are good ATS. It feels like the Knicks were just be disrespected by the books for a while and then became a 1H cover monster. The Knicks are a much better team than they get credit for. We’ll see if that changes at all in the second half. The Bulls have lost more of those games than the Knicks but have been competitive for most of the first half. Chicago has lost a ton of close games this season — 12 of 18 to be exact.

The New Orleans Pelicans and Indiana Pacers are the two teams who should probably be better ATS than these numbers. The Pels have been a disaster on defense. The Pacers have had to deal with injuries to TJ Warren and more recently Caris LeVert after acquiring the guard from the Houston Rockets in the four-team deal for James Harden. It’s also worth noting both these teams have new coaches: Stan Van Gundy and Nate Bjorkgren.

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