 This is Covering the Spread, part of the FanDuel podcast network. We've got a big Tuesday on tap for today because not only do you have games across the NBA, but also this is our final day, clocking bets before the tournament begins for the farmers insurance open in the PGA. So we're going to have Brandon Gadoula on for today to break down his thoughts on both of those, talking basketball, talking some golf and getting you set for a successful Tuesday night. I'm on into Covering the Spread. That's right here on the FanDuel podcast network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Joined here as mentioned by Brandon Gadoula. Check him out on Twitter at Gadoula13. He is a senior managing editor of NumberFire.com. Brandon, busy week for you, with golf beginning on a Wednesday to avoid overlap with the conference championships. So how are you doing today? Oh, yeah, Jim, with PGA back, it's always busy because the NBA don't stop. It never stops. It's relentless. We know that. And once the PGA tour starts back up, that is also relentless. So basically nonstop with those two sports specifically for me. Do you prefer PGA beginning on a Wednesday so you're done with stuff? Don't think about it? Or is it more hectic for you to jam everything in right away? I mean, I guess your stuff's usually up on Monday anyway. Well, it just depends on, you know, how, you know, when we get like slates. Yeah, when we get when we get odds, certain things. I mean, I just feel pretty slow for this week for a lot of a lot of places for the farmers. But I think I probably just prefer the Thursday because in the event that I don't get things all sorted on Monday, I'm still, you know, free and clear for like another two days. Well, we're going to get you set for the Wednesday tea times and get you set for the farmers insurance open later on. We'll start with NBA in just one second. But first, a reminder to make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast broke down my opening thoughts on the conference championships in the NFL. Yesterday broke down what my numbers say about the cheese with Patrick Mahone's being banged up both if I assume he's healthy and both if I assume he is banged up ran through the process there. And then I also talked about Niners versus Eagles. That is up on the covering the spread podcast feed and on the Fandall YouTube page. So to search for Fandall on YouTube or search for covering the spread wherever you get your podcast, hit subscribe. And if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review as well. The NFL playoffs are back and here is the easiest way to get on the action with Fandall America's number one sportsbook. New customers join today and get started with one hundred and fifty dollars in free bets guaranteed when you place your first five dollar bet. 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Text Hope & Wire in Tennessee. Call the red line at 1-889-9789. Now, moving to the NBA, there are a couple of nationally televised games for tonight. We got the Celtics and the Heat, the Clippers at the Lakers brand. I know your favorite teams all involved. In this one, teams that have never had injury concerns, never had things in doubt for you to juggle throughout the day. So when you look at these, people want to lock in bets while they're watching these games tonight. Anything you like in these games or are they a voids for you? Well, yeah, thankfully, Miami isn't having the worst injury report of all time tonight. So that's very helpful. But the Celtics, though, are on a back-to-back to play at Orlando last night. Lost by double digits. Jason Tatum, Jaylen Brown each played a lot of minutes, 36 or more. So, you know, that's a bit of a concern. However, on no rest this season, the Celtics are 7-0 with an 83% cover rate. There's 6-0 in road games on a back-to-back, 4-2 against the spread. I don't really look at these numbers in terms of, like, actionability, but it likes, I like to see that a team can kind of figure things out on a back-to-back, kind of overcome that game plan accordingly. But with that game last night, there's still no official injury report for Boston. So they're actually a little bit more problematic early in the day than Miami. I would assume they're without Marcus Smart and Malcolm Brogdon again. Al Horford probably sits on the back-to-back. So you got to make adjustments there. Statistically, though, they're still a good team without those guys on the floor so long as they have Tatum and Brown. It's not really a huge change to their data, even if it feels like it. For the heat, again, shockingly small. Injury report doesn't include any key players. The spread currently is Miami minus two. I believe that shifted from one and a half when I looked earlier. And it's not two and a half, two and a half. OK, so probably not getting a lot of Celtics healthy. I think the line is pretty efficient. That being said, I like the over, OK, despite maybe some potential absences so long as we have Tatum and Brown active, Boston is going to be able to score. These teams have played to the over two out of three times already. One of them was it was an overtime game. But I think the scoring is going to be a little bit better than people probably realize with the injuries. Injuries alone don't always mean that that scoring will be down. But yeah, over two, 19 and a half, two, 17 and a half. So it's come down. It's been dropping a lot, which does have me a little bit concerned. But I think it's also one of those games where you look at, you say, you know, back to back, it's Miami at home. Probably probably like the under, but all the data sort of actually points to the over. So that's probably one where you're waiting to see where it hits like its nadir and starts to kind of level out. And if it gets to, you know, if it stays a two, 17 and a half for a while, then I think you can have the confidence to fire on the over. It keeps on tumbling. That probably says that there is some kind of key thing that's going to be announced later on. But as long as it like hits its nadir at some point, I think that it makes sense to keep an eye on it at least. Yeah, but, you know, projecting what we know for certain, even even sort of on the skeptical end with that trio that I mentioned for Boston being out, my numbers have the over. I think that's just one of those like sort of misleading, you know, not really a narrative, but it sounds like it'd be an under but the data likes the over. Yeah, which team for the Clippers and Lakers? Right now Clippers are five point favorites total. That game is two thirty. So, yeah, the Clippers should be pretty healthy based on their injury report in games with both Paul George and Kauai Leonard, eleven and seven, nine and nine against the spread. So I think the odds makers have kind of figured out what this team is played at pretty evenly. The Lakers are the bigger issue here. They're without Anthony Davis. LeBron James is listed as questionable, which isn't really news. But then that for like 70 straight games, it seems like. Yeah, it's a huge shift, understandably, with and without LeBron. With LeBron active for this game, my numbers would have the Lakers is one and a half point underdogs. So I'd love just to take the five points with the Lakers. But without LeBron, their their net rating that I would use goes from basically zero to like a minus 12. They're a really bad team without both LeBron and Anthony Davis in key, key leverage situations. So, you know, it's hard to say early in the day and the over under number switch based on whether LeBron is active. I would assume that he does play. Because LeBron's questionable a lot and doesn't miss a whole lot of games. But, you know, it's one of those where it there's some other games on the slate. I know you probably want to like get action to a national televised game. But for me, I'm not really interested in this one. Yeah, let's say LeBron is confirmed as in, would you be willing to take it as long as it stays below that one and a half that you had it at? Or how would you handle that in that situation? Yeah, I mean, we're going to get points anyway, I think with the Clippers. Like it's not going to shift that much or sorry with the Lakers. So it's it's it's, you know, as long as we're getting points. I'm good with that, basically. So monitoring the total for Boston, Miami, two seventeen and a half right now likely looking at the over there. If we if that doesn't continue to to bottom out and then also keeping on the Lakers potentially adding that later on, depending on the status of LeBron James. But as you mentioned, there are plenty of other games on Tuesday night. What else do you see on the board right now at Fandle? So we have Bull's Pacers. That's an interesting one to me. Pacers are one and a half point home underdogs. Total of two thirty five and a half. But my number is like the under a lot in this one because of the health of Tyrese Halliburton. Without Halliburton, Indiana's offensive rating drops seven point six points. Their defensive rating improves by three point two points, which are both under friendly trends in eight games without Halliburton. Pacers have gone under sixty two and a half percent of time. Their own points per game number drops by six point three. He's a really good player and this team just is different with and without him. So I don't think that's fully accounted for with such a high total. And then Dallas taking on the the Wizards in this one. Dallas seven and a half point home favorites. Washington is going to be without Chris, that's poor Zengas. Dallas is also without Christian Wood, but there's a pretty big difference between like the net net ratings. So basically what you are with a player, what you are without him and like that difference. If you look at that, that number poor Zengas has is a plus five point six. Wood is a plus one point zero. And so long as they as so long as Dallas has Luka Donchich, their offensive rating is high. It doesn't really matter. So they have a one twenty one offensive rating in games with Luka Donchich, but no no Wood or Maxi Kleba. So inject all that into my model. And I think that Dallas wins this one pretty comfortably at home. But right now that number is a seven and a half facing off of the Wizards. It was obviously making some trades recently, seven and a half points spread in favor of Dallas. And you talked about the under for the Pacers and the Bulls, two thirty five and a half the number on that one. A fan dual sports book, the under is minus one oh eight. So decent little card across the NBA for tonight. Let's talk now about some golf. We got the farmers insurance open coming up this weekend. It is a two course event at Torrey Pines, the north and the south course. Most of them played in the south course. What do we need to know about the two courses in play for this week? Yeah, so we should we should focus primarily on the south course and with that in mind distance, it's over seventy seven hundred yards, smaller greens than average around five hundred or sorry, five thousand square feet on average, according to the GCSA. PG tour average is around six thousand, so that's roughly eighty three percent. So basically small greens and that does correlate actually with better iron play, but the distance itself is also important. Just it's not like I'm not saying it's the most demanding set up because we have seen this be set up in a more difficult fashion for the U.S. Open, but it's not going to play quite like that or anything. But you know, past three winning scores have been either 14 or 15 under. So pretty big deviation from like the twenty five twenty eight underscores we've been seeing, you know, in the swing season and just start the twenty twenty three calendar year. If you look at the past winners here, they're generally like either long off the tee and had the short game clicking to sort of be a surprise winner to some degree or they're just really, really good overall golfers. So, you know, with a lot of studs in the field, that kind of does impact how I'm betting the week like John Rom's on fire, but he's not the only star in the field. And I think it'll it'll probably take a really like true heavyweight to sort of beat him on a course that plays, you know, a lot tougher than what we've been seeing. So I'm looking at Irons distance and putting for this week. Tough to putt on these poet greens statistically on the South course. And again, just kind of an all around test. And that means that the long term form just overall golfer strength is not the worst way to go. I don't know how many like long shots we'll see it's toward the top of the leaderboard come Sunday. And like you said, that is a deviation from what we saw. We've seen the past couple of months, and I think it's important to kind of like have a mental reset at that point to kind of reorient yourself with a different kind of set of what we've had here recently. Speaking of different setups that translate to the odds. The odds of this event at Fandall Sportsbook, John Rom plus 430. Pretty short, I will say he has lengthened. He was plus 390. So Fandall, I'll give you a little bit of a break here. But that's short, man. I'm assuming we can't get to wrong with that number, correct? I can't. I like how far off are you from that? Like really far off or no. So plus plus 430 is 18.9 percent. I haven't 14.9 percent. That's that's not bad, actually. It's not like those. Yeah, it's not the worst once you account for like the fact that that number might be a little bit low. I don't account for things like course history in my model. If you did, it might be around 18.9 percent for John Rom, won the US Open, won the Farmers in the past. Just really good here. He's like on fire and he's doing it. And the iron play itself is not really what's separating him. He's just so good at golf. There's nothing that he doesn't do well. So like for me, I can't get there. You know, it's he's shorter than he was last week. But I realistically think like there's not going to be a whole lot of like Davis Thompson's and those in like Chris Kirk's kind of pushing toward the top late on Sunday. I could be wrong on that. I think it'll kind of be like a two or three guy showoff showdown on Sunday. So I'm not going to get there with Rom again. Like if anyone wants to, I'm no longer going to fight it. I'm sick of like avoiding John, like recommending to avoid John Rom at this point. Plus, like it's a tougher course and like the better golfer should separate. So I'm out. He is easily my model's like favorite to win. I I very I don't often get to the bet or recommend my model's favorite because there's more to it than just taking the winner. It's not it's not straight up or anything. So if you want to bet John Rom, you have every race in two, aside from the odds being a little bit shorter than they probably deserve to be. Now, the benefit of having Rahmet plus 430, where his implied odds are about four percentage points higher than his than his odds in your model is that that in theory should open up value elsewhere. In theory, unless they just jack up the hold, which, you know, could happen. Any outrides showing value to you right now? I do like to and they're both toward the top of the board. Let me guess. Are we getting Xander here? Yes, we are getting Xander. OK, OK, knew it. All right. You have a second guess. Oh, let me think here. Is this is your model showing value in this person? Or are you betting them or do you want to recommend them personally? Both. OK. JT. No. Finau. No, he's 12. No, it couldn't be that. Hideki at 33. No. No. Way no. That sounded like. No, the model doesn't really love Hideki that much anymore. So I got Xander. I'm going to just going to call Xander is 11 to one. Who is the other person who was out? Of course. Oh, yeah. OK. I think so. So Will's always doing stuff in good fields and that helps out a lot. But for Xander, I think he's over the back issue based on what he did at the American Express T3 there really surged. And he says that he doesn't like birdie fests. He does pretty well on them usually. Did a lot of damage with the wedges, but we have incomplete shot length data from last week with a three course rotation. So just two courses or two rounds there. But this is probably a good, I don't know, sort of teaching moment because I'm not trying to claim that I know everything. But it's a good reminder that if you just trust long term data and use that, you don't have to like sweat if Xander had like two good rounds with the wedges because we know long term is a good wedge player anyways. It doesn't like you shouldn't really bucket that too much. But the long term data has Xander ranked first in the field in true strokes game T-degree and over the past 50 rounds according to data golf. He's got the home game narrative for this week. I was going to ask what's the bump? What's the bumper home game? He's from San Diego. This is in La Jolla, basically, you know, his backyard. Played a lot of high school golf here. Hasn't always translated to direct success at Torrey Pines, but he's rounding into form at the course on the PGA tour. Top 25 in two of the past four years, T2 in 2021, albeit five shots back of Patrick Reed during his infamous embedded ball situation. We can leave it at that. But I do like Xander and, you know, I think that one of these guys is going to have to be the one who beats John Rom at the top. So I'm going to stick with Zalatoris. It's going to be a smaller betting card at the top. Don't really love long shots for this week. It's a pretty tough top of the board, pretty tough course. That's just how I'm playing it. But for me, Zalatoris makes a lot of sense. Similar to Xander, where I'm no longer concerned about the back, so a good ball striking data from him at the American Express and the Century Tournament champions. He stopped foreign strokes, ganteed a green 21st and putting, which the putting is really trending up long term for him. Good results here, two top 10s the past two years for him. And so, look, it feels like we're fighting John Rom this week, like the field against John Rom. I'd rather go with like Xander or Zalatoris. I will say, if you want to kind of like pay the John Rom tax in a different way, Xander was plus 700 to be top American. So I'm not saying 11 to one and seven are the same thing, but that is an option if you're too fearful of John Rom. I mean, that makes a lot of sense actually, just a lot of- Plus 750. Yeah, so. Zalatoris also gets the home state bump, not the home town bump, because it's a very different part of the state, but he gets the home state bump. He's from the Northern part of the state somewhere up there. But he's 14 to one, Xander Shafley 11 to one. I mean, Xander, I think makes a lot of sense. Getting confirmation last week that he was healthy, I think is kind of the big thing for him. What about non-outrights? Now, the menu here pretty limited thus far, especially because we're talking here on a Tuesday morning, but any you see right now, and then any guys you are looking at for non-outright markets once as opposed to? Even with somewhat limited options, I do see some things that look good. Two in particular, nationality bets. SungJM top Asian player, plus 230. I think that looks good. I think that the odds are too short for both Hideki Matsuyama, who again, my model is not in love with. Of course, where statistically putting is tricky, I think that makes enough sense to shy away from Hideki there. And see what Kim, I think also is bumped up too much. Coming off of a win at the Sony Open, really putted well to a T22 with the American Express. I know, again, limited data, but I think that that has kind of changed things in the short term and that SungJM is the better play long-term at plus 230. And then Dean Bermister, top South African, plus 170. If you just look at the true strokes gained averages among the South Africans in the field over the past 50 rounds, according to Data Golf, Bermister is a plus 0.73. Dylan Fortelli, minus 0.26. MJ Duffy, minus 0.34. And Garakiego, minus 0.76. Big edge to Bermister there, whenever I see stuff like that. My model likes it too, but that's just confirmation that I think the recent form is telling us that we can go with Bermister at plus 170 there. Yeah, so Bermister plus 170, top South African, SungJM top Asian at plus 230, joining Will's Outdoors 14-1 and Xander Shafley, 11-1 Outrights or the Xander 7-1 Top American as well. Preference for you between the Xander Outright and the Xander Top American? Do you prefer the just full outright on him or what do you think? Is the American one really just a hedge to get away from ROM? That would be it, is basically, if you think ROM wins it or you don't want to sweat like ROM and it's a ROM Xander showdown and you don't want to have to worry about it, I personally would go with the outright, but I'm also afraid sometimes of John Rom, so. I don't blame you, it's a very fair emotion to have. I think it's personal preference, but I'll stick with the outright. Okay, well, that sounds like a fun card across the NBA and the PGA for the next couple of days. Get those bets locked in again because the first tee times for PGA this week will be Wednesday morning, so get those in as soon as you can. That is Brandon Gedula breaking down NBA and PGA for us. You can find Brandon on Twitter, at Gedula13, GDULA13, Brandon, thank you for swinging by for today. Once again, good luck to you tonight. We'll talk to you once again in about five minutes over on the DFS side of Things Talks and PGA. Yeah, it's always fun, Jim. Looking forward to it. You can find Brandon's work, his simulations for PGA and his NBA betting guides over at numberfire.com. I'm on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. Almost forgot how to spell my name there for a second. Good start to the day. We'll talk to you once again Wednesday, talking to NBA and NHL with Tom Vecchio. This has been covering the spread right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.