Breaking down NBA Team Totals

I’m somewhat amazed at how many people can not do the math required to break apart an NBA game total in to respective team totals and first halves, so in the spirit of giving, I figured I’d drop some knowledge.

It’s easiest to do this with an excel spreadsheet, set it up as follows

Column A Column B
1 Favorite Spread Enter Spread on the Favorite
2 Game Total Enter the Game Total
3 Favorite Team Total =B4+B1
4 Dog Team Total =(B2-B1)/2

Fairly simple, just subtract the spread on the favorite from the game total and divide by two to get the Dog Team Total, then add the spread to the Dog Team total to get the favorite. If you’ve done it right, the difference between the two totals will equal the spread, and adding up the team totals will equal the full game total.

And there you have it.