NBA

NBA Player Prop Bets to Target: Lakers at Nuggets (Game 1)

Austan Kas  —  @AustanKas May 16th, 2023

Here, we'll focus on utilizing daily fantasy basketball projections and a slew of other tools to help make money betting player props. For this article, we are focusing on the NBA odds at FanDuel Sportsbook 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 live in-game props with ease.

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

Jamal Murray Over 2.5 Made Threes (-132)

Jamal Murray struggled from three over the final four games of the last series versus the Phoenix Suns, hitting just 27.6% from deep in that span, including a miserable 0-for-9 effort in Game 2.

I think Murray gets back on track in Game 1 tonight.

For the playoffs as a whole, Murray is hitting 2.9 threes per night and shooting 39.5% from beyond the arc. That's mostly right in line with his regular-season output of 2.6 made threes per game on a 39.8% three-point percentage.

In four regular-season matchups with the Los Angeles Lakers, Murray sunk at least three triples in two of the games and took at least seven three-point tries in three of the contests. LA allowed the third-most made threes per night to point guards in the regular season.

Our model projects Murray to go 3.0 of 7.6 from beyond the arc in Game 1.

Nikola Jokic Over 1.5 Steals (+152)

Nikola Jokic figures to play a lot of on-ball defense this series in his headline matchup with Anthony Davis, and that should give him plenty of opportunities to get deflections and steals.

Jokic has racked up multiple steals in half of his past eight games in these playoffs. In four meetings with the Lakers in the regular season, Jokic notched two games of four steals and averaged 2.2 steals per night. Jokic had multiple steals in three of the five games in the Nuggets-Lakers playoff matchup in 2020.

Our projections have Jokic at 1.6 steals today, and given the pricing on this prop -- +152 on the over and -196 on the under -- the over is worth a roll of the dice.