The Ross Rankings below show which teams right now belong in the play-offs were they to occur today. Some unfamiliar faces are looming large this season, while some mainstays are surprisingly missing. New additions to the Eastern Conference so far are Cleveland, Toronto and Orlando. Boston has plummeted to depths seldom seen in that franchise's history, and given the recent problems both on the court and in the boardroom, there doesn't look to be any light at the end of the Celtics tunnel.

In the West, things have returned pretty much to status quo with the real LA team and Utah returning to playoff contention after last years debacle, Minnesota might be ready to finally reward Kevin Garnett for all the hard work he has put into the franchise. 

Things are pretty tight for that 8th spot in both conferences. This is where the games are actually the most exciting to focus on. If you are looking for higher risk plays on your weekly ticket. Look at match-ups for teams currently in the 5th to 12th spots in the East and 7th to 14th spots in the West. It is tough to know  week to week just how well these teams will do against each other. One simple way to separate the easier from the harder money is to take the total scoring of Team A in their last five home games (if they are playing their next game at home) and add it to the total scoring allowed by Team B in their last five road games (if they are playing their next game on the road). Divide this by 10 to produce an average. Now do the same thing for Team B by adding up their road game scoring and Team A's home game scoring allowed and divide by 10. The difference between these two average numbers is your scoring factor. Yes this may seem a bit simplistic, but you are dealing with a pragmatic fundamentalist. Now take the RR of each team and subtract the difference. The greater the difference the greater the likelihood the stronger team (based on RR) will win and exceed the scoring factor. 

Now some may be asking, why not just use the season averages. My answer is simply, you can if you would like to. However, the last five road and/or home games illustrates a recent trend which considers players who are currently hot, struggles due to key injuries. The teams most recent short term trend is of value here. Is it really important to consider a team who averaged 110 points per game back in December when they were lighting everyone up, if the past two weeks they have two players injured or sick and have only been able to muster 92 points per game? This is what is actually happening at this point in time.

The next question is why the RR. Well given that it is compiled using fundamental data (what has actually happened on the court), it provides a strength comparison between teams in order to discern differences when making your picks. Sure it is rather obvious the easy money is on Dallas when they play Memphis, but what about Atlanta vs. Charlotte? That kind of bet is higher risk and using the RR to gauge strength helps clarify ones position a bit more.

Again, we are not talking rocket science here. Just to prove it to the skeptics, I will pick ten hard money NBA games each week from now until the playoffs. These are games where the outcome is least clear on the betting front. Good luck with your picks.