Last Updated on April 3, 2026 7:34 pm by Aaron Bruski | Published: April 19, 2025

All right guys and gals I wasn’t sure if we would get there but alas I have a 2025 NBA Playoff Betting Journal for you.

It was a great year on the prediction front as well as bolstering culture and operations here at SportsEthos but truth be told I’m still getting clobbered by Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as excited as ever with my progress and because everybody here is so gung ho on doing things the right way I’ve never been more supported. There has been a lot of improvement and when combined with the organizational growth I’m hopeful that I can get back to 100%, or at least finally get rid of all the anchors.

Last year was my first year not dominating the postseason and it had to happen at some point. I’ll definitely wear it. If you know you know.

This year I’m not exactly excited about the slate. That said, we have angles and therefore angles we shall take. And while I am not exactly excited about the slate I am pretty happy with our position here. I feel like we have a solid foundation to launch from and hopefully the aggregate fade of teams that I don’t think will win helps us leverage our positions enough to make this more exciting overall!

(Last Year’s Playoff Betting Journal link: Here)

***SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR THE LATEST PLAYS AND JOURNAL ENTRIES***

To set this article up — this journal is my playoff betting journey, minus the game to game plays. So futures bets and series bets. It’s the type of thing that might have a different strategy from year to year. But before we dive into strategy let’s quickly acknowledge that playing a postseason in this manner is a constantly changing chessboard. Investing in the teams that you like and having early success, especially on underdogs that the public hasn’t caught up on yet, can give you ways to hedge into guaranteed profit or even leverage the guaranteed returns into huge upside in future plays.

Let’s talk a bit about how I am handling units and overall strategy. Typically units mean whatever your standard bet is. Here, we set a target number of units to bet over the course of the entire postseason and ultimately set a total budget for what we’re willing to put up for the entire playoffs. Because we could either experience an accelerated betting strategy as the playoffs progress — one where we want to hit the gas on how much cash we put in the furnace, or conversely one where small bets actually make more sense, whether in profit or loss scenarios, we have to remain flexible on that front.

Below you will see a loose framework and target unit distribution for each stage of the playoffs. Any team that we’re not investing in pre-flop I have listed as ‘out’ off to the right side. Basically if any of those teams keeps advancing toward an outcome, we’re going to have to hedge and otherwise recover later on down the road, probably at a loss.

In the chart below you will see that I have 500 units I am targeting to play and 200 of them going in pre-flop on futures. Another 225 units will be planned for the rest of the journal on futures plays, and 75 units for some series betting which I’ve found to be a pretty low volume marketplace.  Down at the bottom I show this distribution of what I’m targeting to play in each stage of the playoffs, as well as the series plays, and then I show you at the bottom what the total investment would be based on the size of unit you’re playing. We’ll jot down the new bets as we go. Again, this is a journal of what I will be playing.

I recommend to set a total budget for what you’re willing to put up for the entire playoffs and then divide that by 500 to get your per-unit play.

I’ve also shown what the ROI for your total investment would be in a segment (i.e. Finals futures, West futures, etc.) based on how much your units are worth ($1, $5, $10, $25).

I will update this journal throughout the playoffs and try to be as explanatory as possible but be warned the document can get kind of long and fairly messy. Apologies in advance and best of luck to all of us!

PRE-PLAYOFFS ANALYSIS

To be clear, I haven’t seen a squad like the Oklahoma City Thunder since the Boston Celtics from last season. All kidding aside, I’ve never seen a team do what OKC did to opposing squads in the box score in my two decades in this business. At the same time this draw couldn’t have been much worse for them. While Denver has their problems, they still have the best basketball player on the planet and the gravitas to win. The Los Angeles Clippers bring several defenders that can credibly address the Shai Gilgeous-Alexander issue and are competitive throughout the rotation/coaching box. They will play over their level compared to the regular-season. Oklahoma City will have to win a heavyweight series in the second round and then get past either Luka and Lebron or Steph and Jimmy in the conference finals. We have put enough units on OKC to get a small profit but given those challenges it feels like we can establish positions on both Los Angeles squads, Golden State, protect against a Cleveland run and also stay strong with Boston. Our big chance to advance well out of this position is with our holdings on the Clippers and Golden State Warriors fronts. If both teams advance we will be able to hedge into some additional profit for Oklahoma City and Boston.

FIRST ROUND SERIES BETTING

GSW -174 over HOU * 8.7u
LAL -186 over MIN * 9.3u
LAC -118 over DEN * 9.44u
IND -164 over MIL * 13.12u

Things aren’t perfect in Golden State but they are going well with the addition of Jimmy Butler. They have the personnel to pick and roll Alperen Sengun to death, even if they frustratingly won’t do so. The addition of Butler makes them more surgical with their approach and this will cause Houston to get confused in their approach, and if that doesn’t work they have a number of bigs that can stand in the way and not get completely bowled over. This is basically the same squad that held up against a better version of Sengun in Domantas Sabonis. Fred VanVleet is all sorts of questionable and Amen Thompson is amazing but this is his first rodeo under the circumstances. Dillon Brooks has more potential to hurt Houston in this series than help. Houston will try to make this a brawl but Golden State has seen that a million times in the playoffs and they have all of the experience.

I’m not going to have time to get to this here in this place but check out my write up on the G1 action in the WagerPass for Los Angeles over Minnesota, Los Angeles over Denver and Indiana over Milwaukee

April 24, 11:24 PM PT

NBA CHAMP

Indiana +6600 * 5 units
Golden State +2500 * 8 units

WESTERN CONFERENCE CHAMP

Golden State +1000 * 8 units

At this point it seems very likely that Indiana advances out of the first round and they get Cleveland who Erik Spoelstra semi-faded when he said his team didn’t play well and they hung in the G2 loss. Cleveland is very good but their high-end gear is still up for debate but the genesis of this that on Indiana is simply that the rate of return is too good to pass up. It could serve as a hedge supporter but there’s something about this Indiana team that’s under rated and if they somehow advance after Cleveland they actually have a fairly good solution for Kristaps Porzingis in Myles Turner and they do have some decent matchup against Boston. Again, hedge potential makes this sound but I wouldn’t probably do it without having some faith that they can make things interesting.

As for Golden State, right now with Jimmy Butler’s injury keeping the line close despite a questionable status on Thursday night it feels like Vegas believes he’s not all the way out and that starts to rule out some of the longer-term risk and the series price reflects that as well. Golden State has been one of the best teams in the league since Jimmy Butler arrived and getting them at this kind of a value allows us to lean into Oklahoma City with a squad that with Jimmy Butler is the best team on its side of the Western Conference bracket and therefore also a good NBA championship position to expand upon. This all becomes about how best to maximize a position on Oklahoma City and also hope that they can slip a little bit early in a series to be named later.

April 29, 10:29 p.m.

Denver NBA Champ +4000 * 6 units
Los Angeles Lakers NBA Champ +5000 * 2 units

Nikola Jokic is still underrated for his athletic ability and while I have expressed concerns about ownership the players and coaching haven’t slipped at all. They have the athletic components necessary in the first five to six roster spots to compete in the context of Jokic probably being able to keep Isaiah Hartenstein from being his typical dominant self and though the defense has been problematic throughout the year the playoffs are different and teams get away with a lot more so it’s not a dead on arrival situation against Oklahoma City, Cleveland or Boston. We have now given ourselves multiple large positions to hedge into with Oklahoma City if they slip at all and the same conversation will be looming for Cleveland and Boston. We have solid positions there for all three squads and we can play them off one another based on who slips first. Both of these plays are pretty small in the grand scheme of things, as well.

May 1

Los Angeles Clippers +2800 * 5 units
Denver +5000 * 2 units
Minnesota +1700 * 20 units

We had been currently exposed on Minnesota but Houston doesn’t have a chance at winning a title so any hedge there is worthless but Minnesota at least functions well right now and has high-end talent with some key benefits of having a matchup for Isaiah Hartenstein with Rudy Gobert and vice versa because Chet Holmgren can’t expose him for all the Oklahoma City thunder will have to to get buckets. Julius Randle has finally gotten the message and is playing a more proportionate role and making folks like me eat my words. I could go down the rotation but the beginning is they aren’t dead money and I want to build up the other side of the bracket opposite Oklahoma City to support a buy before the competition gets whittled down. Check my worst case scenario planning to see what that play would look like sometime in the middle of the next round of the playoffs. I also do that for Boston and Cleveland to protect against scenarios of the best teams advancing. We will have big positions on teams with a punchers chance in Los Angeles, Denver, Golden State, Minnesota and if Cleveland falters for any reason we have some fun money to play with if Indiana somehow does well. We are completely exposed against New York and while I respect them they just don’t have the firepower or the mojo. The hope is that somebody complied against Cleveland, Boston or Oklahoma City and we can catch any two loss scenarios in an upcoming series against their opposition. If that happens I believe we will have access to numbers better than what we show in the worst case scenario. If we decide to lean all the way into Oklahoma City at any point in time we probably have a really good shot at 20% ROI. The hope will be that we can fade Cleveland and leverage the still strong Boston odds if Oklahoma City continues to steamroll, which is the one outcome I’m not sure of. I’m not sure of it because I don’t know how high they can climb because I don’t put any limit on it. With Boston we have seen enough of them in high leverage games to know what they are punching power is and of course it is substantial. We have a similar question mark with Cleveland, but that tilts more toward whether or not the regular-season was overrated or not and we have some evidence in past playoff performances that it could be. My counter to that is that I don’t know if Evan Mobley is some sort of force multiplier in the same thing goes for their bench/depth, which is daunting. The counter to the counter is that Oklahoma City and Boston present defenses that are as potent as we have ever seen. Overall, we have some downside but we have mitigated it and we are ready to strike at any time the league decides to go off script.

CURRENT

THEORETIC DOWNSIDE ILLUSTRATION/PROJECTION

May 4

Oklahoma City +135 * 15 units
Boston +195 * 20 units
Cleveland +700 * 5 units

Having faded Cleveland in relation to other contenders the loss to Indiana wasn’t too surprising. We will have at least a day or two if we want to build into this position and a win brings the number back just a little bit, a loss would push the number out significantly and we could make a play to cover up any risk there. I can’t see them beating Boston or Oklahoma City or Denver and even Minnesota and Golden State would be a lot to handle for them so I don’t exactly want to push too hard. On the other hand I want to get some chips in the middle for Oklahoma City and Boston before the field gets narrowed and the money gets closer to the 100 to 150 range. Now the hope will be that we can get a little bit of struggle for OKC and Boston to fortify those positions before we ultimately have to push chips in the middle to secure something like five to 15% ROI. Some of these underdogs we have big positions on doing well could help push that number much higher.

May 5

CHAMPS

Golden State +2500 * 5 units
Oklahoma City +175 * 20 units
Boston +250 * 15 units
Denver +2000 * 5 units
Minnesota +1500 * 5 units
New York +3000 * 15 units

Interestingly the odds on Cleveland got a sizable boost after the Boston lost so I’m holding off improving the position there knowing they won’t be favorites anytime soon and there is plenty of time to get an even better price. I was able to wipe out our exposure on New York and build a wall of non-pre-flop underdogs. It was important to continue adding to some of those underdogs while the odds are still returning big value as anymore parity might keep us from having levers to bed into if the pre-flop favorites hit the gas and don’t look back.

What would be great is if we can feed both sides of the equation in steps to truly expand our position.

WEST

Minnesota +400 * 10 units
Denver +550 * 10 units

It was a good time to remove our exposure on Minnesota and lean into our position on Denver. We already have a big position on Golden State and now we wait to see if we can build the same type of wall we are on the championship side but we might need Minnesota to lose a game or two while OKC loses another one to really get some good traction here.

May 6

Cleveland +1000 * 8 units
Indiana +1800 * 5 units

Cleveland gave us a really big window to take down the risk and possibly guarantee profit the rest of the way. We definitely want to keep pressing our advantages and gaining distance, which brings us to Indiana and we are getting the same opportunity we got last round to take a team heading home up two games to none. I thought Cleveland played a bit better shifting a ton of usage over to Donovan Mitchell but the devil is in the details there as he ran out of gas and the multifaceted dynamism wasn’t there to carry Cleveland to regular-season levels. Regardless, Indiana is playing team basketball and an argument can be made that they are the better team, regular-season accolades aside – here’s looking at you Kenny! Regardless, if New York somehow advances past Boston, the Pacers might end up being the favorites and Boston has a few question marks with regard to Kristaps Porzingis and whether all of the pieces are as good as they were last year, as some of these guys are a bit dinged up. I’m going to be watching to see if Jrue Holiday has more snap on his fastball as Jalen Brunson was able to discard him way too easily on a few occasions. From here

From here the market needs to see Denver or New York draw blood more than once and if that happens the hope is that we can get some prices in the 200-300 range and close that gap up, while the third drop of blood would lead us to being able to expand our positions.

May 7

Minnesota +1200

I have decided I’m waiting on Boston before cutting some of the exposure but especially with Stephen Curry out at least a week adding some counter leverage to Minnesota while respect is low for them make some sense.

May 11

OKC +135 * 30 units
Indiana +1400 * 10 units
Boston +225 * 10 units
Minnesota +900 * 10 units
New York +2200 * 10 units

We don’t need to bet into Cleveland or Golden State right now and we have enough stake in Denver to let that roll. We want to cover some distance on OKC and give proper respect to Boston while getting additional value on very strong positions in Indiana, Minnesota and New York.

May 12

OKC -105 * 225 units
New York +650 * 30 units
Indiana +900 * 25 units
Boston +2000 * 15 units
Minnesota +750 * 10 units
Denver +1600 * 5 units
Golden State +5000 * 2 units

From a betting perspective we got exactly what we needed and then some after New York beat Boston and then of course whatever happens with Jayson Tatum’s injury isn’t helping matters. DraftKings tossed out a +2000 so 15 units covers our Boston exposure, leaving just Cleveland exposure that we can clean up along the way if necessary. The big story here is that we are making our play on OKC and guaranteeing profit on them, while putting the teams with 3-1 leads into big positions that we can either hold onto if things are going well (and maybe even built them theoretically), while using them as a hedge through the rest of the playoffs. If Boston somehow rallies we are within striking distance and with Cleveland we now have major exposure but that’s pretty much it. The rest of the board is covered and as of now we are looking at double digit percentage returns at minimum if everything holds true to form.

May 13

Indiana +650 * 12 units
Denver +3100 * 5 units
Boston +4000 * 4 units
Minnesota +600 * 3 units

We almost had an Oklahoma City loss to open up the door to some interesting building possibilities but who knows, maybe allowing us to build into some of these underdogs with punchers chances like Denver, Minnesota and even Boston who might benefit from a more balanced attack. I’m not saying they are better without Jayson Tatum. I’m mostly saying they are still a very good basketball team and on that note we get to reduce our liability to zero for the time being and we have several ways to play it if they somehow keep winning. Another feature of these plays is that I have balanced out the number in the Eastern Conference between Indiana and New York. Now, I can simply play OKC against the East and try to take advantage of missteps along the way.

May 15

CHAMP

Boston +1800 * 15 units
Indiana +650 * 15 units
OKC+110 * 10 units
Denver +1000 * 10 units
Minnesota +500 * 40 units
New York * 15 units

WEST

Minnesota +240 * 5 units

We did some big time rebalancing here and most importantly we established positions all Boston and Minnesota, and though Boston faces elimination they are both still live wires and in the case of Boston more minutes for Peyton Prichard bodes well against Jalen Brunson and one last producer might actually balance them out in a good way. I’m not saying they are a better team without Jayson Tatum, but I am saying that sometimes match ups make fights and removing a piece of the puzzle when it would otherwise be impossible to do can sometimes luckily lead to a better matchup. Luke Kornet is showing why we have been UniKornet fans all along and Kristaps Porzingis can’t be any worse than he has been. Have long thought that Jaylen Brown deserves just as many accolades as Jayson Tatum and he has more accomplishment than Tatum in playoff basketball so regardless they are a live wire. I like but don’t love the price on OKC as Denver could easily beat them and I’m thinking this series has made a dent in the OKC reputation. We will have opportunities to buy later on. Mostly we just have everything covered now as we boa constrictor our way around this thing.

May 21

NBA Champ

Minnesota +1100 * 2 units
New York +800 * 3 units

West

Minnesota +530 * 6 units

These are just position plays to take advantage of odds in games that were competitive in series that will be competitive.

May 24

OKC -285 * 25 units
Indiana +425 * 15 units
NYK +2000 * 3 units

I’m still holding out hope that we can see Oklahoma City get more wounded but after a loss in Minnesota it certainly time to start closing the gap. Likewise if we can play the Eastern conference side of the equation in zigzag fashion maybe we can build up that side to bring up our ROI.

May 28, 4:09 PM PT

Indiana +500 * 75 units
Minnesota +5000 * 5 units
New York +3000 * 5 units

There is a gap between the amount it costs to bet the Thunder and the Pacers if you want to exclude New York and Minnesota and at the same time you can also get New York and Minnesota at amazing prices right now. So I’m going to do everything but bet the Thunder in hopes we can get a reprieve on the price after a Minnesota win and my theory is that the market won’t move too much if OKC knocks them out tonight. I have about 400 units earmarked for Oklahoma City and because we built up Indiana we will have a spread of about zero to -30 units for OKC and 200+ units for Indiana to head into the Finals with. If New York keeps winning we will have enough opportunity to build them up but overall this is about dealing with the heavy price on Oklahoma City and then hoping that their defense can’t crush Indiana and we can get some better pricing on them throughout that series to end up with about 40-80 units of profit, which won’t be great but Oklahoma City was tough to bet on this year and maintain guaranteed profit.

June 6

OKC -300 * 300 units

After the G1 win for Indiana we got the opportunity we needed to cover some major ground. It would’ve worked out a little bit better if Indiana was dominant and didn’t require a massive comeback, and I’m also tempted to go lighter than what I have done here but I figure this wipes out a ton of liability and we still have opportunities to build into this if Indiana keeps a foot on their neck.

June 13

OKC -220 * 75 units

It’s so tempting to keep our foot on the gas with Indiana all the way but we don’t want to get caught 2-2 with momentum heading back to Oklahoma City and the steep prices that will return. There’s no reason to go massive here, however, as the only way we win big big is if we leave Indiana out there with a huge gain and they win at home. 3-1 will lead to a really big number for OKC and we will have options.

June 19

It’s painful to have to do this but our only path to significant upside is to bet that OKC wins this in Indiana and we get up and over 60 units. If Indiana forces a game seven then we will have an outcome spread of about 80 units and we will lose a handful if OKC wins. With whatever is happening with Tyrese Haliburton’s calf and the sheer odds they must overcome it makes most sense to take this shot here, which effectively reflects us backing off of our Indiana upside, a loss in of itself.