Finally, the first round of the NBA playoffs are here! It’s great to have meaningful basketball to watch in August, and I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am.
The DFS market has exploded in recent years, and you’ve got a plethora of options aside from the big-names of DraftKings and FanDuel. No House Advantage (NHA) is one such upstart competitor, and the site has eschewed the traditional salary cap structure in favor of ranked prop bets.
What does that mean? At NHA, you must pick a set number of individual player prop lines, take the over or under, and put them in order. The higher you rank a line, the more points you receive if it hits.
If you’re an experienced DFS player, you know that the payout structure will dictate your strategy. For this week’s 55-person $500 WC Showdown, 60% of the prize pool goes to first place. After last week, my NHA predictions are currently 13-1, so I will try to keep the cash flowing!
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Best High-Priority Prop Plays
Damian Lillard (POR): UNDER 7.5 Assists
Last week, the over on this line anchored our perfect stack. This weekend, it’ll be the under that brings us to the promised land. And while I’m reticent to ever bet against Dame, I can justify this line because it’s a bet on his teammates to miss shots, not him.
The over makes sense when Dame plays bad defenses. He averaged eight assists per game in the regular season, and he put up a whopping 9.6 of them per game in the bubble. But Lillard hasn’t topped five assists in this series, and that sample includes a Blazers win.
I don’t think the Blazers will win this game. The BettingPros consensus spread puts them at +7; FiveThirtyEight has them at +6.5. With the consensus points total at 222.5 (7.5 less than Thursday’s line of 230), Portland has a realistic ceiling of around 108 points.
The Trail Blazers will need Dame to put the team on his back, and that means he won’t be able to dish out many assists. As a result, the under over lets us “stack” Lillard with his teammates. If he’s scoring all the points, other players aren’t, and we can bet on their unders to cash as a result. Smart DFS players stack to minimize the number of predictions that they need to get correct, and I’m expecting the Blazers to score no more than 105 points.
Oh, and before I forget —
Lillard’s dislocated finger could complicate things. It may force him to pass more frequently, which, in turn, could lead to more assists. However, it could limit his minutes and overall effectiveness instead. I’m not going to pick based upon uneducated injury speculation, but if this lineup busts, Lillard’s finger could be the culprit.
C.J. McCollum (POR): UNDER 23.5 Points
I’d be confident in this play even if I weren’t stacking Portland unders. His line is just set about two points too high — he averaged 22.2 points per game in the regular season, but that fell to 20.1 in the bubble. Worse, he averaged just 17.3 points per game against the Lakers in the regular season, and he’s averaged just 17 per game in this series so far.
McCollum has cleared the over just three times in his last 10 games. He did so against the Grizzlies, the Kawhi-less Clippers, and the Nets — that’s not exactly tough competition. This under is an easy one for me, especially since McCollum failed to clear it in any of his five games against the Lakers.
Best Mid-Priority Prop Play
Carmelo Anthony (POR): UNDER 15.5 Points
I love Melo, but we’re stacking against Portland, and this is the next best selection. He averaged 15.4 points per game in the regular season, but that increased to 16.5 in the bubble. That said, he averaged just 14 points per game against the Lakers and just 6.5 in this series.
Melo has cleared his over with more frequency than McCollum, however, so that’s why this line earned a lower priority. Just looking at his last 10, he scored 21 in the play-in game against the Grizzlies, and he scored more than 15.5 in his games against the Clippers, Sixers, and Mavericks.
That said, he saw a ton of minutes in Game 1 (37:55), and he missed the over by a five-point margin. He has consistently shot below .400 against the Lakers this season, so his 11.75 attempts per game won’t be enough for him to hit the over.
Best Low-Priority Prop Plays
Jusuf Nurkic (POR): UNDER 17.5 Points
You can complete the stack with a Nurkic under, or you can roll the dice with two Lakers plays. I’m not too fond of this line due to our limited sample size (Nurkic has played in only 11 games) and the frequency with which he has cleared the over.
Nurkic has cleared it in six of those 11 appearances. That includes his games against the Celtics, Rockets, Nuggets, Nets, and both games against the Grizzlies. Also, he averaged 17.6 points per game in his eight regular-season appearances.
That said, this does complete the stack, and it’s a smart pick in line with our other plays. Nurkic didn’t hit the over in either Game 1 (16) Game 2 (8), so I’d feel comfortable playing this as my two-point or one-point option.
LeBron James (LAL): UNDER 29.5 Points
King James hasn’t needed to score much in this series. He scored 23 points in Game 1 (while racking up 17 boards and 16 assists), and he only scored 10 points in Game 2.
This line is set far above James’ averages — he scored 25.3 points per game in the regular season and just 22.8 per game in his full-length bubble appearances. He averaged 24.6 against the Trail Blazers in three regular-season games, clearing the over just once.
It’s difficult for me to bet against James, but this is a bet against the line, not the player. At 29.5, it’s far too high for my liking. His points, rebounds, and assists line is also too high at 49.5, but he cleared that in Game 1, so I believe that this line is the safer option.
Dwight Howard (LAL): OVER 5.5 Points
This is the only over to make it into this column, folks. Howard consistently outperformed it — he averaged 7.5 points per game in the regular season, 7 per game in the bubble, and 7.3 per game against the Trail Blazers. He missed it in Game 1 (4), but he easily cleared it in Game 2 (9), although the garbage-time minutes certainly helped.
The over is three of five in Howard’s games against the Blazers. While it’s no sure thing if the game is close, you’ve still got better than tossup odds. And if the Lakers get out to another early lead, it’s had to see Howard failing to clear the over in garbage time.
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Isaiah Sirois is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Isaiah, check out his archive and follow him @is_sirois.