NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Thursday 5/12/22

Player props can be useful in a variety of ways, from taking advantage of them straight up within the betting market 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.

The prop-betting experience on FanDuel Sportsbook is getting even more fun. You can track your player props with real-time updates and place in-game props with ease.

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

Jimmy Butler Under 25.5 Points (-120)

Jimmy Butler averaged 21.4 points per game in the regular season, so the fact his points prop is listed at 25.5 points tells you how much he's ramped up his game in the playoffs. He's been an absolute monster through nine postseason games, averaging 28.3 points per night on a 27.9% usage rate.

He's benefited from Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro both struggling scoring-wise in the playoffs. Bam averaged 19.1 points in the regular season but is at 15.1 in the playoffs. Herro -- who led the Miami Heat in usage in the regular season (27.8%) -- netted 20.7 points per contest in the regular season but is struggling mightily in the postseason with an average of only 14.2 per game. Those two will surely pick it up at some point.

And even with Playoff Jimmy fully activated, Butler has scored 23 or fewer points in three of the five games versus the Philadelphia 76ers.

While Butler is fully capable of having a massive scoring night, especially in a potential closeout game, our model really likes the under on this one. We project Butler to score 23.6 points in Game 6.

Jalen Brunson Over 4.5 Rebounds (+115)

Jalen Brunson has been right at this line in pretty much every game of this series. Through five outings against the Phoenix Suns, Brunson has snagged four, five, four, four, and seven rebounds.

That's a slight uptick from his average of 3.8 boards in the regular season, and it makes sense as the Dallas Mavericks have gone smaller in this series, giving big minutes to Maxi Kleber over Dwight Powell, which means it's an all-hands-on-deck situation on the glass for Dallas.

Brunson sees big minutes -- which always helps with any over bet -- logging at least 30 minutes in four of the five games, with the one exception being a night he had to deal with foul trouble. He should push for minutes into the upper 30s with the Mavs' season on the line.

Our model projects Brunson to get 4.8 rebounds, and the +115 price on the over is appealing.