3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Monday 6/7/21
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.
Giannis Antetokounmpo Under 34.5 Points (-122)
Giannis Antetokounmpo is fresh off of a 34-point game in the first outing in his series against the Brooklyn Nets, but numberFire's algorithm is anticipating "only" 32.3 points from the superstar in Game 2, which naturally points to the under on this prop.
Antetokounmpo shot a strong 67.0% from the field on 24 attempts in the opener and bricked all 3 free throw attempts.
That field goal percentage is more than 10 points higher than his regular season field goal percentage (56.9%), so it's a little tough to bank on such high efficiency for a second straight game.
Using the 32.3-point baseline projection and Giannis' in-season variance within the scoring column, he should be around 63.1% likely to stay under 35 points tonight, suggesting the under should be at -171 odds.
Bruce Brown Under 9.5 Points (-128)
Bruce Brown Jr. should see an uptick in minutes tonight with James Harden out for Game 2. In Game 1, Brown played 21.3 minutes and scored 6 points on 5 field goal attempts. The minutes projection for him tonight is 23.2, according to our algorithm, and that comes with a point expectation of 8.2.
Simply put, the minutes may be solid for Brown, but the shot attempts likely won't be. Without Harden but with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving on the floor, Brown has an 11.0% usage rate and averages 0.31 points per minute, according to RotoGrinders' CourtIQ tool.
That scoring rate over 23.2 minutes puts him around 7.2 points.
Using his baseline projection and typical variance, Brown is 60.1% likely to stay under his prop, indicating the odds should be -151 on the under.
Austin Rivers Over 2.5 Rebounds (-104)
numberFire's algorithm is big on the over here, expecting 3.5 rebounds for Austin Rivers against the Phoenix Suns tonight, and the odds are very enticing given that discrepancy.
Rivers is projected for some significant action: 35.0 minutes. That really helps play into the over. Rivers' full-season rebounding rate is just 0.09 per minute, but that gets him to a 3.2-rebound projection at such a high workload.
With such a high baseline projection (relative to the prop) of 3.5, Rivers is emerging as 74.9% likely to get to 3.0 boards, suggesting -298 odds on the over. Even if we scale it back to the 3.2 number based on his minutes and rebounding rate, he's 64.8% likely to get to 3 boards.
