2023 NBA Play-In Tournament: Odds, Picks, Betting tips

ESPN's fantasy basketball and basketball betting tips cheat sheet is your pregame destination for basketball betting predictions and our best intel and data, featuring ESPN's proprietary Basketball Power Index (BPI) to help you make smart fantasy and wagering decisions. NBA game odds for Friday, April 14 are provided by Caesars Sportsbook.

The final playoff seeds in each conference are on the line this evening. The matchup between the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls projects to be a relatively low-scoring affair with a total of just 209, while the Western Conference showdown between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder approaches 230 on most books.

This gap in offensive expectations adds up when you consider Miami is 29th in pace while Chicago is 19th and both teams have top-10 defensive ratings. This margin drives interest in the game in Minnesota when it comes to building DFS lineups in a contest that features Karl-Anthony Towns, who happens to have the best value rating of the night in my projection model.

Found at just $8,500 on DraftKings, which is just the fifth-highest salary of the slate, Towns projects just a few fantasy points behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander while costing nearly $2,000 less. Building lineups around these two stars along with glue guys such as Kyle Anderson, Jalen Williams and Luguentz Dort could be a fun strategy in a game that bodes to include lots of buckets.

— Jim McCormick

Chicago Bulls at Miami Heat7 p.m. ET, FTX Arena, Miami, Florida

Records (Against the Spread) Bulls: 40-42 (43-39-0) Heat: 44-38 (30-49-3)

Line: Heat (-5.5) Total: 208.5Money Line: Bulls (+185), Heat (-225)BPI Projection: Heat by 0.5

Injury Report: Bulls: Lonzo Ball, (OUT — Knee) Heat: Gabe Vincent, (GTD —