3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Thursday 6/3/21

Player props can be useful in a variety of ways, from taking advantage of them straight up (to the tune of cold hard cash) to measuring a player's potential to produce in daily fantasy basketball. Here we'll focus on utilizing our projections and a slew of other tools to help make money betting player props.

For this article, we are using the odds provided at NBA Finals odds to pinpoint spots where value can be had tonight.

Please note that betting lines and our player projections may change throughout the day after this article is published.

Mikal Bridges Over 11.5 Points (-120)

We hit on a Mikal Bridges made threes prop on Tuesday, and our model sees a lot of value in his points prop today.

Bridges hasn't been scoring much in this series, netting 10, 6, 6, 11 and 13 in the first five games. So at this line, he's gone over just once, but our model projects him for 14.5 points in Game 6.

The Los Angeles Lakers were very good defensively in the regular season, finishing first in defensive efficiency with a clip of 104.8. In the small sample of this postseason, LA is fifth in defensive efficiency at 105.6. There could be some small-sample noise at play, but with Anthony Davis not at 100% this series, it makes sense that Los Angeles' defense has suffered.

More than half (28) of Bridges' 45 shots in this series have been threes, and he's yet to even attempt a free throw. So he's going to need to have his jumper going to get to 12-plus points. But he's taken 15 treys across the last two games, and our algorithm has him at the aforementioned projection of 14.5 points.

Andre Drummond Under 10.5 Rebounds (-118)

Andre Drummond has logged between 19 and 22 minutes in four of the first five games in the series, and the lone exception was a 24-minute outing in Game 2. He's averaging exactly 11 boards per night in the series, and he may be needed more on the glass with Anthony Davis banged up or out.

But our numbers point to the under.

Going back to the regular season, Drummond has snagged more than 10.5 rebounds just once in the last seven games in which he got no more than 22 minutes.

Drummond does see a boost to his rebounding numbers with Davis off the floor, but it's not a crazy increase (1.5 more boards per 100 possessions without AD on the floor, per NBAWowy).

We project Drummond to total just 19.1 minutes and 8.6 rebounds in Game 6.

Jusuf Nurkic Over 10.5 Rebounds (-132)

Jusuf Nurkic has racked up at least 11 rebounds in four of five games in this series, and we're getting him at a line of 10.5 tonight. Plus, the -132 price isn't too bad.

For the year, Nurkic averaged 1.0 more board per night on one day rest than he did in any other rest split. Nurkic averaged 1.0 more rebound per game at home than on the road, and he also averaged 12.8 rebounds per night when he got 30-plus minutes.

We project him for 31.5 minutes and 11.6 rebounds tonight.