NBA

NBA Finals: 3 Player Prop Bets to Target for Game 4

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 5.5 Assists (-110)

This is an easy recommendation simply because of how far numberFire's projection is over the points prop for Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Our model is projecting Giannis for a nice 6.9 assists total over 40.3 minutes.

That works out to 0.17 assists per minute, which is exactly his full-season rate, so this projection isn't that outrageous. Antetokounmpo has generated 4, 4, and 6 assists in this series so far (just 0.12 per minute).

That underperformance would suggest a bounce-back, even if we account for the Phoenix Suns' defense, which allows assists at around 93% of the NBA average. That should take Antetokounmpo down to just 0.16 assists per minute.

Considering the 6.9-assist projection, Antetokounmpo should be viewed as 70.3% likely to hit the over on his assist prop. That would mean odds of -237.

Devin Booker Over 27.5 Points (-108)

Again, this is just a spot where numberFire's model simply outperforms the prop by a huge margin. Devin Booker is projected for 32.5 points over 44.6 minutes.

That's 0.73 points per minute. Booker's full-season average? Yep, 0.73. So it comes down to the minutes, really. Booker did shoot terribly in Game 3 (21.4% on 14 field goal attempts) but also played merely 29.1 minutes.

Assuming even 40.0 minutes played (i.e. scaling him back from nearly 45 minutes as his projection suggests), Booker would need his scoring rate to drop to 92.5% of his usual mark to score 27 points or fewer.

Using numberFire's baseline projection of 32.5 points and Booker's usual variance in scoring, he should be viewed as 76.2% likely to go over his points prop. That would suggest odds of -320.

Jae Crowder Over 10.5 Points (-108)

This is yet another spot where the projection just doesn't quite line up with the prop.

numberFire's model sees Jae Crowder scoring 13.8 points over 35.4 minutes, which is 0.39 points per minute, an uptick from his full-season rate of 0.35 points.

At the projected minutes rate and his usual scoring average of 0.35 points per minute, we can still project Crowder for 12.4 points, so let's use that lower mark as the baseline instead of numberFire's projections.

Doing so still gives Crowder a 61.0% chance to get to 11-plus points, suggesting odds of -156 on the over.