The Nets' approach to resting Mikal Bridges while keeping alive his consecutive games streak turned into an edge for savvy bettors Wednesday and caused sportsbooks to abruptly halt betting on the Brooklyn star.
Sportsbooks took down the betting options on Bridges' statistics, including points, rebounds and assists, within approximately 90 minutes after the Nets announced that three starters would be rested Wednesday against the Bucks.
Bridges, who owns the NBA's longest consecutive games streak, and Cam Thomas were the only regular starters not listed on the injury report released at 1:30 p.m. ET.
The over/under on Bridges' points (21.5), rebounds (4.5) and assists (3.5) were in line with expectations that he'd play a full game. Bettors, however, recalled a similar scenario in a Bucks-Nets game last March in which Brooklyn rested multiple starters and played Bridges only the first quarter, at least in part to keep his streak intact.
Bettors believed Bridges would be similarly limited against the Bucks on Wednesday and rushed to sportsbooks to bet the under on his statistics — and they were right: Bridges played only the first quarter, finishing with six points, three points and one assist.
«I saw that the Nets were resting everyone, and I knew that Bridges had the iron man streak of consecutive starts going, and we had seen this in the past with the Nets,» Danny Komendera, a 29-year-old bettor and content producer from Illinois, told ESPN. «I just thought it was an opportunity. I decided to tweet it out, because I think this is an edge, but obviously didn't realize at the time how significant it could've been.»
Noah Zwit, a 24-year-old avid sports bettor from Illinois, said he learned of the potential edge around 2:15
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