Toronto Raptors at Cleveland Cavaliers (Game Five): Game of the Day – What is “The Crowd” Saying?
May 17, 2016; Cleveland, OH, USA; Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan (10) works against Cleveland Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith (5) during the first quarter in game one of the Eastern conference finals of the NBA Playoffs at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
Toronto (2) @ Cleveland (2), Game 5
Las Vegas: CLE -11.0 spread
- over-under 199
- CLE moneyline -900
- TOR moneyline +600
Tonight’s simple pick: TOR and the points on the spread.
Yesterday’s recap:
The Crowd’s strongest lean yesterday was on the under for the GS v OKC game and it was correct! The slight spread tip toward GS that all of the computer simulations ( SportsLine, Team Rankings, NumberFire, Vegas Insider, OddsShark ) and our Crowd (barely) implied was not as good. It’s difficult to model the beast that Russell Westbrook has become in the playoffs.
Tonight:
Our Crowd agrees with Cover’s crowd on taking TOR and the points against the spread. This disagrees with all computer simulations other than SportsLine. It also disagrees with offshore money, but that might explain the large spread given to a Cavaliers team that has one of their top players (Kevin Love) seriously struggling with no explanation and possibly banged up now. The only reason the Cavs remained close is thanks to the incredible spot up shooting of Channing Frye.
Notice from the plot below that the Crowd does overwhelmingly think LeBron will put the team on his back and grind out a victory. It just won’t be by more than 11 points.
The Crowd’s Line
Equal weighting [ take the CLE moneyline, barely take TOR and the points ]
- CLE -9.4
- standard deviation of spread line: 8.2
- expected value of $1 bet on TOR spread is $.21
Hot Hand [ take TOR and the points ]
- Experts on TOR and CLE ( top 10% spread pickers over last three games for the two teams )
- spread line: CLE -8.7
- standard deviation of spread line: 9.3
- expected value of $1 bet: $0.35
Contest Leaders [ take TOR and the points ]
- Leaders of The Crowd’s Line TOR vs CLE series contest.
- crowd size: 7 predictions
- spread line: CLE -9.3
- standard deviation of spread line: 5.4
- expected value of $1 bet: $.08
Spread bet signals from The Crowd’s Line and around the net.
| source | crowd | Hot hand | Contest lead | Computer model | Crowd by Wager | Analyst |
| The Crowd’s Line | TOR | TOR | TOR | |||
| SportsLine | CLE | TOR | CLE | |||
| ESPN | TOR, TOR | CLE | ||||
| Covers | TOR | TOR | TOR | |||
| Vegas Insider | CLE | |||||
| OddsShark | CLE | CLE | CLE | |||
| YahooSports | CLE to win |
