Knowing the other team isn't really anything to go on. Why? Because some of these series will be lopsided sweeps and some will go tooth and nail to the last game, you'll see both outcomes. You'd have to research the season series and see how those games played, but even then, isn't Vegas closing this loop hole in their analysis, actually it is an outfit called CRIS that sets the lines to all these games. You think they don't know that these two teams played tight games during the year? Of course they do.
Just like you said, sometimes the Over and Fave come out, look at any consensus and track for one year how many wins the higher percentage team receives and how many times the lower percentage wins in the NBA. Those 70 and 80% public plays win all the time. It's a fallacy to think you could pluck winners that way over a long period of time. Anything could work short term of course.
I think one good point you made was the back to back to back point. Teams in the East stink. That means they are playing on broken systems. Technical efficiency is very inconsistent. When you amp up the rate of play on a broken system then it can very easily break. Again one has to think, isn't this game factor in the spread already?
Each series is going to have its own story. Handicappers must follow this story and predict the next plot point to happen. Does the team that's been blown out two games in a row on the road now bounce back and play the game of their lives on their home floor? Anyone who watches the playoffs knows we have seen both outcomes. The better team has gone in their and trounced them again and we've also seen the dog play good and actually win the game. You have to decide what it is going to be based upon the story thus far.
I do agree that handicappers need to start leaning towards a more philosophical approach like this and really need to move away from the analytical approach. The people at the top of the bookmaking food chain have the analytics of handicapping figured out way bettor I mean way bettor than probably every handicapper in the world except a few people maybe.
So, if you're Joe Shmoe from Minnesota and you wanna sit at your computer and handicap some NBA playoff games based upon the same recycled statistics everyone else is looking at on a dozen other sites, I say good luck to you. You're up against the most sophisticated handicapping software on the planet as well as some of the sharpest gambling minds in a world. But you sit down night after night at a computer, look at some stats, and think you can beat those guys? Look up the definition of insanity.
I bet for the thrill of it, I know the NBA is a god dam battle field full of land mines. I know a pretty renowned sports bettor from Vegas, the type of guy that has runners traveling to casinos all over town. This guy has even won the super contest at the Hilton. I don't want to say his name because I do not know if he'd want me to or not. He told me that no one serious about making money bets the NBA in volume, meaning like on a nightly basis. Some bettors pick their spots and are extremely picky, and even then they do not kill it. The are small winners. This guy does not mess with the NBA at all. He said NCAAB is where he donates his time during basketball season. As far as NBA totals go he told me for a while there was someone killing Vegas and off shore books with the half time totals in the NBA, his name was Voulgaris I think. But Vegas has closed that loophole and now he said in an interview that he does it very sparingly now. I think it was reported that he won 7 - 10 million in a season betting the half time lines. I believe he was actually a former player scout for an NBA team. The same edge he made all his money on he said no longer exists.