The Milwaukee Bucks’ protest of Game 5 will go down as an iconic moment in sports history. As we work to make meaningful progress in this country, the playoffs resume on Saturday. While I’m glad to have basketball back, athletes shouldn’t have to choose between competing and standing up for human rights. It falls on us to fix that. That said, here are my picks for the day’s slate of games.
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 $1K Slam Dunk contest, 50% of the prize pool goes to first place. After a bad showing last week (2-4), my NHA predictions are currently 17-5, so I’m hoping to get back on track in this spot.
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Best High-Priority Prop Plays
Chris Paul (OKC): UNDER 8.5 Assists
This line is very exploitable. Paul has cleared it just twice in 10 bubble games — once against the Wizards (12), and once against the Rockets (9). That’s 20 percent. He averaged 6.6 per game in the regular-season bubble, and he’s averaging 4.8 in the series.
His year-long stats don’t justify the line, either. Paul averaged 6.7 on the year, and he’s cleared the over in just 18 of his 74 games — that’s less than 25 percent.
Game 5 will be hard to predict — especially since Russell Westbrook is making his return. The BettingPros consensus spread puts them at +5; FiveThirtyEight has the Thunder at +6. With the consensus points total at 226.5, they should score around 110 points. Yes, the Rockets don’t have a good defense, but this is enough breathing room to work with for the under.
Picking the under here allows us to “stack” Paul with his available teammate, SGA. If he isn’t dishing out this many assists, then there’s a chance that OKC’s offense isn’t meeting NHA’s expectations. Smart DFS players stack to minimize the number of predictions that they need to get correct, and that makes SGA’s unders more strategic.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC): UNDER 23.5 Points
I don’t have anything against the Thunder, but Paul and SGA’s lines are set generously. Like Paul, SGA has only cleared the over on this line in the bubble twice — once against the Nuggets (24), and once against the Rockets (31). Again, that’s 20 percent. SGA averaged just 17 per game in the regular-season bubble, but that rate jumps to 20.3 for the series.
Also like Paul, SGA has rarely cleared this over. He’s done so 17 times in 74 games, which is even less than the rate at which Paul cleared his over. In seven games against the Rockets, he’s beaten it exactly once.
SGA is the only other Thunder available, and it makes sense to exploit these inflated lines. As long as this game doesn’t get out of hand offensively, I think that both lines should cash, so I recommend that you feature them prominently in your lineup.
Best Mid-Priority Prop Play
Russell Westbrook (HOU): UNDER 1.5 Three-Pointers
After a multi-game absence, Westbrook is ready to make his return. Apparently, he would’ve been able to start Game 5 back on Wednesday, so I’m not expecting him to be that limited in this spot.
That said, it’s usually safer to tap the unders after missed games than it is to play the over. So while my model likes his points over line, which is set at 23.5, I’ll target his three-pointers instead.
Why? Westbrook averaged one three-pointer per game during the regular season and in the bubble. He shot more than one three-pointer just 12 times in his 57 games, which is barely above 20 percent. His splits also point to the under — he made just one three-pointer in his three games against the Rockets, and in two of these games, he attempted a three-pointer just once.
While the injury makes me less confident about locking him in as a high-priority play, I think that there’s a good chance Westbrook fails to clear this line even if he plays his usual minutes.
Best Low-Priority Prop Plays
Markelle Fultz (ORL): UNDER 4.5 Rebounds
Yes, the Magic are in a do-or-die situation. But that doesn’t mean I find their overs any more attractive. My model marked this line as super exploitable because Fultz’s season-long (3.3), bubble (3.1), matchup-based (3.8), and series-based (2.5) per-game averages are all safely under it.
Fultz has played in 76 games this season. He earned five or more rebounds in just 16 games, but two of them came against the Bucks. However, Orlando has played the Bucks eight times, so that’s still only 25 percent.
It’s tough to get boards against Giannis, and it’s even tougher to beat your averages against the Bucks.
Nikola Vucevic (ORL): UNDER 12.5 Rebounds
Vucevic’s rebound line also screams value to me. Like Fultz’s line, it’s above his season-long (10.9), bubble (9.6), matchup-based (9.7), and series-based (10) per-game averages.
Vucevic has cleared this line just once in the bubble, as he earned 14 in the Magic’s Game 1 upset victory. In his 66 games this year, he beat it just 15 times, and twice against the Bucks.
I wouldn’t play both Fultz’s and Vucevic’s unders for this one. That’s just too risky. Their two hits came in different games, which means that one of these overs cleared in half of the Magic’s matchups with the Bucks. So while there’s a realistic chance that one could clear their over, it’s very unlikely that both will — you just have to guess which one will miss.
C.J. McCollum (POR): OVER 4.5 Rebounds
I’ll wrap up this week’s column with McCollum. Damien Lillard’s absence may change how Portland chooses to run their team, and that should lead to more minutes for McCollum. Yes, Portland is fighting a losing battle, but McCollum can still beat this line.
Not only has he cleared it in every game in this series, but he also beat it in 29 regular-season games. More importantly, he’s cleared it in eight of 12 bubble games, and he’s done so in five of seven games against the Lakers.
That said, this could be a blowout. The Lakers and Trail Blazers could both pull their starters. But with Portland’s season on the line, I think that McCollum can maintain his strong game off the glass.
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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.