WGM’s Best Weekend Bets: NBA and more …

Happy New Year readers! Welcome to 2015 and the first in a number of significant changes you’ll be seeing at wgm8.com over the coming months as we both expand our reach and fine-tune our content.

Regular visitors to wgm8.com would no doubt be familiar with our daily sports betting tips which have proved to be hugely successful over the past few years. We have, however, noticed that providing a single tip each day can be problematic – some days there is very little on offer that grabs our attention while other days there can be four or five excellent betting opportunities on offer.

With that in mind, we’ve decided to make a slight adjustment in 2015 and replace our daily sports betting tip with WGM’s Best Bets. Each weekday we will run through the notable sporting events taking place around the world and list our best bets of the day, while on Fridays we will not only focus on the next 24 hours but also look ahead to the coming weekend’s action. So without further ado, let’s get started!

With no EPL games schedules and most of the big European leagues still on break, our focus this weekend has mainly been on a handful of NBA games and the opening weekend of the NFL playoffs. A few games set to take place tomorrow our time have taken our fancy in the NBA where we expect a high scoring game in Oklahoma City and a big win by Phoenix. Washington travels to Oklahoma where they can expect a hostile reception from the surging Thunder following a thrilling 137-134 overtime win over the Suns on Wednesday. The stats show that the home side averages just under 100 points per game this season but those figures are misleading given the absence of star Kevin Durant for much of the year through injury. He returned this week for that high-scoring game against Phoenix and with the Wizards flying high in the East we’re tipping this game to comfortably surpass the overs game total.

Meanwhile, the Suns may have lost that thriller two nights ago but they have consistently shown a great ability to pile on the points which spells bad news for the worst team in the NBA, the Philadelphia 76ers. At 4-26, heavy losses have become the norm for 76ers coach Brett Brown and this one looks like it will get ugly too. We like Phoenix at the line at home.

There are four games in the NFL this weekend with our pick of the bunch being the Carolina Panthers to cover the 6-point spread against the Arizona Cardinals. The Panthers might be only the second team in NFL history to make the playoffs with a negative win-loss record for the year (7-8-1) but history shows they always finish strong and that has again proved to be the case with four consecutive wins to finish the season seeing them top the NFC South. Incredibly, they are 15-3 in December games since 2011 and have the luxury of facing a Cardinals side fading badly.

We also love the look of the Dallas Cowboys when they host Detroit on Sunday. The Lions are a gritty side but they lack the class of the big guns – and they don’t come much classier than the Cowboys. Led by Tony Romo, they head into the playoffs on the back of four straight wins and having score more than 40 points in three of them so they should be able to cover the -6.5 handicap.

Tennis fans will be pleased to see the 2015 season get underway this week with ATP events in Chennai, Doha, Brisbane and Perth, while the WTA visits Shenzhen, Auckland, Brisbane and Perth. However, we are reluctant to bet so early in the season given the unpredictability of the form lines.

And although we are leaning towards Australia as the fourth cricket Test gets underway, there are some mitigating factors that have us holding back – namely the sudden retirement of MS Dhoni three days ago which sees the more aggressive Virat Kohli take over for the Sydney Test, plus the fact that the Sydney pitch should suit the Indians more. Time will tell