3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Thursday 6/17/21

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 Over 33.5 Points (-116)

Any time you anticipate a player to score 34-plus points, it's a bit of a tall order to fill, but the odds for Giannis Antetokounmpo to do it are -116, suggesting that he is 53.7% likely to do so.

The big draw for Antetokounmpo to get there is that he's been close to this mark in most games of the series. He has scored 34, 18, 33, 34, and 34 points, respectively.

But we've seen elevated shot volume from him in most contests, as well: 24, 15, 31, 26, and 22 shot attempts.

Antetokounmpo also cleared 40 minutes in two of the past three games (with 38.4 in the other) and should play as much as he can handle in a lose-and-go-home situation.

numberFire's model projects Giannis for 34.3 points. Using that baseline, he should be 55.6% likely to hit the over, based on his typical scoring variance.

Blake Griffin Under 10.5 Points (-116)

Blake Griffin is coming off of a 17-point outing, stemming from a 3-for-6 shooting night from behind the three-point arc. In total, he did have 11 shot attempts, up from 4, 5, and 8 in three games prior.

But Griffin has just two free-throw attempts in this series thus far and has had just 6.5 shot attempts per game on the road in the series with three games in single-digit scoring.

numberFire's projections see Griffin scoring 10.0 points as the baseline assumption.

He's flashing as 55.1% likely to stay under 11 points as a result, when I simulate his scoring output a few thousand times.

Joe Harris Over 3.5 Rebounds (-104)

Joe Harris has played 36.6, 38.1, and 37.0 minutes over the past three games and has returned 4, 4, and 3 rebounds in those, respectively.

That's not really grounds to say he's smashing the over at this prop, but the accompanying odds are quite low.

numberFire is anticipating the wing to pull in 4.3 rebounds over 36.4 minutes.

Harris should be 68.0% likely to hit 4 rebounds at a projection of 4.3 boards, so the model is really loving this opportunity here.