National Basketball Association

Does James Harden's return ensure the Nets will advance past the Bucks?

Updated Jun. 15, 2021 8:18 p.m. ET

By Sam Panayotovich
FOX Sports Betting Analyst

The NBA playoff injury bug has taken two big bites out of the Brooklyn Nets – and while James Harden's surprising return for Game 5 helps make Steve Nash's team whole, it adds a whole new layer of analysis for fans and bettors alike.

Harden’s tight right hamstring and Kyrie Irving’s sprained right ankle indeed have made things a little extra complicated for bookmakers. All signs pointed to Harden and Irving being out for Brooklyn in Tuesday’s Game 5 against the Milwaukee Bucks, so the betting market got as high as Milwaukee favored to win by 4 this afternoon.

When you consider that the Nets at full strength were -3.5 at home in Game 1, the market was telling you that the duo is worth 7.5 points to the betting line.

"I think it should be more," Westgate SuperBook vice president of risk management Jeff Sherman told FOX Sports. "We started at Bucks -3 for Game 5, and if both of them are officially ruled out, the line will go up.

"In Game 2 with Harden out, it was Milwaukee -2, and we wrote tons of Milwaukee money," Sherman continued. "So if it looks like another star is out of the equation, you expect more Milwaukee money to show up. We’re playing to what we think the perception is. … We’ll see what the money is, but you tend to move these things more aggressively when there is that uncertainty."

The calculus gets even wilder when a player such as Harden, who averaged 24.6 points on 47.1% shooting to go with 10.9 assists and 8.5 rebounds per game with the Nets, is trending toward not playing, then, all of a sudden, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski drops a bomb seven hours before the game and says Harden is cleared to play.

At 1:14 p.m. ET, the Bucks were the aforementioned consensus 4-point favorites in the betting market. Woj’s tweet hit the web at 1:15 p.m., and by 1:17, all the 4s had morphed into 3.5s. By 1:35, the market was down to Bucks favored by 3 everywhere. Now, FOX Bet is currently dealing Milwaukee -2.5, with a total of 221.

I will never not be fascinated by Milwaukee opening -2.5 and the market betting it all the way up to Milwaukee -4 based on the likelihood of Harden and Irving not playing. Then the other shoe drops, and the Brooklyn betting avalanche re-corrects the market back to 3.5, then 3, then 2.5. Never underestimate how quickly people can move the betting market.

But how effective will Harden be, assuming he plays? Nobody knows! It’s a glorified game of "Guess Who?"

Speaking of guessing, there’s a lot of educated arithmetic when it comes to the always fluid prices on who will win the series and the effect of injuries. Sometimes, sportsbooks have to over-adjust drastically to stay ahead of the curve.

We saw this in the Lakers-Suns series when Anthony Davis got hurt and Phoenix won Game 4. Los Angeles was -900 to advance after Game 3 and an underdog after Game 4. As we eventually learned, Davis’ injury made him a nonfactor, and the sportsbooks’ massive adjustments on Phoenix turned out to be correct.

"Injuries have been prevalent in this postseason, and it really started with Jamal Murray not being available for Denver," Sherman said. "We didn’t have to make an adjustment because he was already out. Add in Davis and Harden and Irving, and you have several injuries that have affected this postseason.

"We’ve made multiple large adjustments on all these prices that you just don’t expect to make."

On that note, bookmakers now have Milwaukee as the betting favorite for the first time in the Bucks-Nets series. The odds were against that happening after Brooklyn won the first two games, but as we’ve learned, an injury or two can change everything.

"We were talking in the back Sunday night [after Game 4] about Bucks -150 or so to win the series," Sherman said. "Some of the non-Nevada books reopened the Nets as the favorite. [But] the market has pretty much settled at Bucks -150.

"The Bucks are favored on the road in Game 5, and the Nets are shorthanded, [so] the Bucks are favored to advance because, obviously, they’ll be a reasonably large favorite in Game 6 at home, too."

If your brain hasn’t already exploded, here’s something that will definitely do the trick: Even though Brooklyn is an underdog to survive this series, many books have the Nets' odds to win the championship as lower than Milwaukee’s.

Wait, what?

"The Bucks are favored to win the series, but the Nets have shorter odds to win the East and the title," Sherman explained. "That takes into account all the Nets liability [that is, all the bets that have been made on Brooklyn to win it all throughout the season, which the sportsbook has to balance] and the possibility that if they are able to get out of this series, there’s more time for the injured players to return down the road."

If you are looking to back Brooklyn, there's some good news. FOX Bet has the Nets at +350 to win the title, just behind the Bucks, who are betting favorites at +300.

Truth be told, I snagged the Nets +3.5 for Game 5 immediately after I read the report about Harden being cleared to play, and I have absolutely zero idea how effective he will be. Why? I grabbed a number I didn’t think would be available for long, and now my fingers are crossed for Harden staying on the floor. If you take the Nets at +2.5, you'll be in the same boat.

I also don’t hate a position on Brooklyn +135 to win this series right now. If Kevin Durant goes off tonight and Harden plays meaningful minutes, the Nets could easily win at home as an extremely small underdog.

If that happens, Brooklyn will go from +135 to advance to -185 or so, considering it'll host Game 7 and Irving might be able to lace ‘em up by that point.

But as Sherman hinted at, we’re all guessing at this point.

Sam Panayotovich is a sports betting analyst for FOX Sports and NESN. He previously worked for WGN Radio, NBC Sports and VSiN. He'll probably pick against your favorite team. Follow him on Twitter @spshoot.