As a one eyed Perth fan, Melbourne at $4 seems extremely high.

Melbourne and Perth both have a lot going for them.

Melbourne has beaten Perth 3 out of 4 and Illawarra 3 out of 4. They've only lost 2 games at home.

Perth has only lost 2 games at home and they’ve registered some extremely impressive wins- destroying Melbourne by 30, and Illawarra by 29 and 23. So you could argue that Melbourne has gotten the better of close games this season- with nail biting wins by a point or two against Perth (twice), Illawarra, NZ- but that Perth has been more impressive overall.

But why Illawarra is ahead of Melbourne and so close to Perth- that’s a complete mystery to me.

I’m not saying the Hawks have no chance- I’ve put a fair chunk of money on them myself- but at this point they should be around $4.50 at absolute best. With $5 or $5.50 probably a more accurate reflection of their chances. How they are $3.25 is a complete mystery to me.

If I was starting from scratch I'd put money on NZ and MU and hedge on Perth.

Say $80 on NZ and $120 MU, and $56 on Perth.

That gives a very tempting payoff matrix.

You're basically saying that Melbourne and NZ have a higher combined chance of winning than Illawarra and Adelaide. If Perth wins you get your money back.

There is a huge flaw in that logic:

If NZ beat United in both games this weekend, we'll most likely have a Perth vs NZ semi finals.....

I agree that Illawarra should be longer but I think the bookies are wary of them all firing in the right game. Further, they might have been backed in to some degree.

In two of the ILL-PER games, the Hawks were leading at home and lost late.

In one of the PER-ILL games, they were missing Penney.

But yeah, you wouldn't put your house on them in Perth.

Maybe those are cheeseburger prices?

Illawarra is paying $3.25 with TAB for the championship.

You would like to see those odds at about 6 or 8:1 to place any decent coin down.

Illawarra v Perth should be a good series and should go to 3. Perth takes out G1, then Illawarra G2, but G3 is open as I would suggest a quick turnaround and the away team has the advantage. The home team gets back into a nice warm cosy bed with a home cooked meal by their WAG. The body says "phew, it's time to wind down" and so when it comes to game day their body is thinking "what, this again?"

The away team are together in the same hotel. They have nothing better to do so they have a light dinner then go back to the Captain's room for a bit of a de-breif and chat tactics. Maybe go over some game tapes and notice than this player twitches a certain way if he fakes right and his eyes look a certain way if he's about to pass. Adrenalin is flowing, the lost the first game and came back in the second.

I don't think historical data supports that theory.

Very recent historical data suggests that the combined win loss records of all teams still in playoff contention in NBL season 2015 and 2016 have been as follows:

Home: 52 wins and 14 losses.

Away: 27 wins and 38 losses.

I reckon $4 for Melbourne is good value. If I was in to that sort of thing, I'd have me some of that.
Cannot possibly see why Hawks are shorter.
In my view, MU should be favourites,
followed by Perth,
With NZ a chance of an upset.

For mine, Hawks don't even figure into it.
Mostly likely scenario is a SF series against Perth, team they have lost to 4 times.
Don't get me wrong, they're a good team, and have done very well this season, I just think there are better teams already ensconced in the top 2.

I only bet sporadically, and only with Sportsbet and TAB Sportsbet.

Sportsbet still hasn't released new odds this week.

Centrebet and Willam Hill are more realistic- Perth 2.75, Mel 3, Illawarra 4 and NZ 7- but even then I would've thought Illawarra would be longer and NZ would be shorter than that. At $7 NZ is very nice value.

I wouldn't be writing the Hawks off just yet. Only needs Penny and Lisch to get white hot, which they are both capable of and the whole playoff scenario changes.

Cheeseburgers in Adelaide are out of control...

Thing you have to remember is that the TAB and other betting agencies don't set the odds as an indication on whose most and least likely to win.

They set the odds to make the most money possible.

I don't know much about human pyschology but people would still start jumping on ILL at $3.25 - I know i still do it for other sports (hangs head in shame). "Oh X have come down to $ Y, actually maybe they are a really good chance, yeah they can win, yeah they will win".

Nobody would bet on the Hawks at $3.25 right now. That was the point of this thread.

Anon is probably right.

Centrebet's latest:

NBL championship odds now that the final four are set: Perth $2.75, Melbourne $3.25, New Zealand $4, Illawarra $5.