NBA results Friday 30 October 2026: AI predictions review

Eight NBA games went to the models on Friday, and the ten-model consensus came away with six of them. Five of those six were unanimous picks, which makes the scoreline look tidier than the night actually was: two of the most confident calls on the board were the ones that fell apart.

The biggest surprise came in Portland, where every one of the ten models backed the Trail Blazers and the Memphis Grizzlies answered with a 124-103 win. Toronto produced the second miss, going down 114-121 to an Orlando Magic side the consensus had written off at 100%.

Where the AI got it right

The Atlanta Hawks vs Cleveland Cavaliers prediction landed on the right side of a tight one. All ten models took Atlanta at an average confidence of 59%, and the Hawks delivered 114-111. The most common projected score, 119-114, was four points off the actual margin.

The New Orleans Pelicans vs Sacramento Kings prediction was the least certain of the correct calls: only 70% of the ten models backed the Pelicans, at 55% average confidence, and the projected 118-112 scoreline proved conservative as New Orleans ran out 132-120 winners.

The Boston Celtics vs Chicago Bulls prediction was the night's most confident hit. A unanimous Celtics pick at 69% average confidence met a 125-111 result, close to the consensus score of 122-108.

The Brooklyn Nets vs Detroit Pistons prediction and the Philadelphia 76ers vs New York Knicks prediction both returned unanimous verdicts. Detroit won 110-94 against a projected 114-115, and Philadelphia took a low-scoring 98-93 game that the models had pegged at 113-108. The Washington Wizards vs Charlotte Hornets prediction also came in, with 90% of models on Washington at 57% average confidence and a 95-79 final.

Where it got it wrong

The Portland call was the night's clearest failure. All ten models backed the Trail Blazers at 59% average confidence and a consensus score of 121-115. Memphis won 124-103, a 21-point swing that no model had priced in. It is the sort of miss that says more about unanimity than about any single model: when the whole board agrees, there is no dissent to fall back on.

Toronto was the second. The Raptors were a 100% consensus pick at 61% average confidence, with 116-108 the most common projected score. Orlando won 121-114 instead, a seven-point margin the models had assigned to the other side. Both misses came from unanimous picks, and both came on the road team's side of the result.

Models of the day

Seven models tied at the top of the table on 6 of 8: GPT-6 Luna, Claude Sonnet 5.5, Mistral Medium 3.5, DeepSeek V4 Pro, Qwen 3.8 Max, MiMo V2.6 Pro and Grok 4.7. Each of them missed the same two games, which is a fair summary of the night: the errors were collective, not individual.

Gemini 3.8 Flash, Kimi K3 and GLM 5.3 finished one behind at 5 of 8. Meta Muse Spark 1.3 recorded 3 of 5 on a partial card and is not directly comparable with the full-slate tallies.

Full results

• NBA: Atlanta Hawks 114-111 Cleveland Cavaliers — consensus Atlanta Hawks win (100%) RIGHT
• NBA: New Orleans Pelicans 132-120 Sacramento Kings — consensus New Orleans Pelicans win (70%) RIGHT
• NBA: Portland Trail Blazers 103-124 Memphis Grizzlies — consensus Portland Trail Blazers win (100%) WRONG
• NBA: Washington Wizards 95-79 Charlotte Hornets — consensus Washington Wizards win (90%) RIGHT
• NBA: Boston Celtics 125-111 Chicago Bulls — consensus Boston Celtics win (100%) RIGHT
• NBA: Brooklyn Nets 94-110 Detroit Pistons — consensus Detroit Pistons win (100%) RIGHT
• NBA: Philadelphia 76ers 98-93 New York Knicks — consensus Philadelphia 76ers win (100%) RIGHT
• NBA: Toronto Raptors 114-121 Orlando Magic — consensus Toronto Raptors win (100%) WRONG

The next slate is already priced. Today's predictions, with every match run through all ten models before tip-off, are on the TuringStats NBA predictions page.

Next up: today's nba predictions from the same panel, and the results archive with every graded call. Forecasts are informational only.