By Scott Kacsmar
The NBA playoffs continue Wednesday night with a couple of home teams facing elimination. We are looking at our favorite over/under player prop picks in both games, including points, rebounds, assists, made threes, steals, and blocks.
Miami Heat vs. New York Knicks
The Heat lead 3-1 as the 3-point shooting for the Knicks has been terrible in the losses in this series. The Knicks are a 3.5-point favorite with a total of 209.5 points in Game 5.
Jalen Brunson (Knicks) – Over 25.5 Points
Brunson has scored at least 20 points in every game this postseason, and he is coming off his biggest statistical game yet this postseason with 32 points and 11 assists.
But Brunson’s 3-point shooting game has been off in the playoffs as he is only making 28.3% after making 41.6% in the regular season. Brunson was 6-of-10 in the Game 2 win, but he is 2-for-19 from deep in the other games.
Fortunately, Brunson has shot better at home in the playoffs. His top four games in FG% are at home and his bottom five games in FG% are on the road. With the Knicks facing elimination at home, look for Brunson to take a high share of shots as he is still the best option over the inconsistent Julius Randle and RJ Barrett was a little gimpy in Game 4.
It would be nice if Brunson saw his 3s go in again, but he did show in Game 4 that he can score 32 without getting hot from beyond the arc.
Julius Randle (Knicks) – Over 3.5 Assists
In the last two games, Randle’s teammates are just 5-of-12 on his potential assists according to NBA.com. He had 8 assists in Game 2, so the last two games have been rough.
Our game script is favorable to the Knicks extending this series to Game 6, so Randle needs to hit his over-in assists for that to happen. Randle has gone over 3.5 assists in 45-of-77 games (58.4%) in the regular season, but in the playoffs, he has only done it in 3-of-8 games.
But the opportunities to clear this benchmark have been there in the last two games. Randle just needs his teammates to deliver for him.
Mitchell Robinson (Knicks) – Over 8.5 Rebounds
Rebounding was supposed to be one of the edges the Knicks had on the Heat in this series. The Knicks were ranked No. 3 in rebound percentage in the regular season while Miami was No. 10. But in Game 4, the Heat embarrassed the Knicks with a 17-8 rebound edge in the fourth quarter, including a 7-1 advantage on the offensive glass.
This has to be a point of emphasis for the Knicks in Game 5 at home. Mitchell Robinson started this series with a dominant 14-rebound game, but he has been held to 5, 5, and 7 rebounds in the games since. It is the first time since the first three games of the season that Robinson has finished under 7.5 rebounds in three straight starts.
Let’s bank on the Knicks to be the more aggressive rebounding team, and for Robinson to hit his over. He hit over 8.5 rebounds in 33-of-59 regular-season games (55.9%), and he already has games this postseason with 11, 14, and 18 rebounds. He can clear this with ease if the Knicks play like they must.
Gabe Vincent (Heat) – Over 2.5 Made Threes
Vincent is not a great 3-point shooter having made just 33.4% of his attempts in the regular season. But he has taken advantage of Tyler Herro’s injury as the Heat need more shooters. Vincent has upped his 3-point attempts per game from 5.1 in the regular season to 7.3 in the playoffs, and he is making 36.4% of them.
Through 7 playoff games, Vincent was hot with 3.3 makes per game and shooting 40.4%. He had five games with over 3.5 made 3s. But in the last two games, Vincent is just 1-of-9 from deep, regressing to the mean.
He also has just 8 points in the last two games after averaging 15.1 points per game to start this postseason.
Oddly enough, all the games where Vincent has gone off from deep this postseason have been on the road. This is another road game, and we like him to bounce back big in this one with over 2.5 made threes.
Bam Adebayo (Heat) – Over 0.5 Steals
Finally, this is another regression pick for the Heat. In the playoffs, Bam Adebayo had 8 steals in the 5-game series with Milwaukee, but he has just 1 steal in this series with New York.
In the regular season, Adebayo had a steal in 52-of-75 games (69.3%), a great hit rate. He also had at least one in all four games against the Knicks, but that has not been the case this series.
However, while the track record might say he comes up empty, this is a good spot for positive regression and to expect Adebayo to impact the game in different ways after he was a big scorer in Game 4 with 23 points, his most this postseason. Look for him to get on the defensive side of things and grab a steal.
Los Angeles Lakers vs. Golden State Warriors
It comes as a surprise, but the Lakers are up 3-1 on the Warriors after a thrilling Game 4 win. We can safely assume Lonnie Walker IV will not drop 15 points in the fourth quarter this time, but is he a steal or fool’s gold at his current line? Either way, the Warriors are facing elimination at home but they are a 7-point favorite.
Lonnie Walker (Lakers) – Under 8.5 Points
This is an amusing one as Lonnie Walker is basically the 8th-most important player on the Lakers, a benched starter from earlier in the season. But he just had the moment of his career in Game 4 when he scored all 15 of his points in the fourth quarter to help the team to a huge win.
But Walker has sparingly played this postseason until a few recent blowouts:
- He scored 8 points in the 40-point blowout win over Memphis in Game 6 of the first round.
- After sitting out Game 1 of the Golden State series, he scored 9 points in the Game 2 blowout loss, playing all 12 of his minutes in the fourth quarter with the Lakers down big.
- In Game 3, the Lakers won in blowout fashion this time, and Walker scored 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting in 24:24 of action.
- In Game 4, Walker played 27 minutes, including all 12 in the fourth quarter where he exploded for 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting.
Walker had 34 games in the regular season with over 8.5 points, but many of those were early in the season when he started. He was averaging 14.3 minutes per game since his return in January to a smaller role.
But after what happened in Game 4, you have to expect the Lakers will at least test the hot hand here. However, this feels like another game where the blowout is possible, but this time in favor of Golden State at home facing elimination. Maybe Walker can be a fourth-quarter stud in a meaningless quarter, but I like the under, adding even more curiosity and wonder to how he did what he did in Game 4.
Klay Thompson (Warriors) – Over 4.5 Made Threes
As much as we can highlight the struggles in crunch time for Steph Curry, the bigger story should be this disappearing act Klay Thompson has put on in the last two games. Despite looking forward to playing in the arena of the team he grew up watching, Thompson flopped in Los Angeles with 24 points on 25 shots in two games.
Worse, Thompson scored 11 points in the first quarter of Game 3, so that means he has 13 points in the last seven quarters.
But even with bad shooting (8-of-25 from the field), Thompson has made over 2.5 3s in the last two games. The volume will be there, and he should do better at home. Thompson was brilliant at home in the first two games of this series with 14 made threes, his two most prolific games this postseason from deep.
Let’s go with him to bounce back and make over 4.5 threes. You can also take Thompson for over 22.5 points in this one.
Austin Reaves (Lakers) – Over 3.5 Rebounds
This is a good value line for Reaves, who has gone over 3.5 rebounds in 7-of-10 playoff games. However, he finished the last two games with 2 rebounds each time. Part of the issue in Game 4 may have been that he was much more aggressive as a scorer, taking 15 attempts and scoring 21 points.
But the data from NBA.com also just shows bad rebounding from Reaves. Over the last two games, he has only collected 4-of-12 rebound opportunities (33.3%). In the regular season, he was good on 54.5% of his chances. In the first round against Memphis, he was again good on 56.1% of his chances. But he is down to 46.4% in this series against the Warriors, who are harder to figure out from a rebounding perspective since Kevon Looney’s minutes have been cut for health and with Steve Kerr trying different lineups like Gary Payton II starting Game 4.
So, we will go with the positive regression for Reaves and expect him to top over 3.5 rebounds. Even in Game 2 when the Lakers were blown out by 27 points, Reaves had 4 rebounds in just under 25 minutes of action. This should be the safe pick.
Dennis Schroder (Lakers) – Over 2.5 Assists
Schroder has gone over 2.5 assists in 6-of-10 playoff games. He also did it in 49-of-66 games (74.2%) in the regular season, an incredibly high hit rate. The rotations for the Lakers have changed over the season with D’Angelo Russell taking over at point guard and more minutes for Austin Reaves.
But Schroder is averaging 26.3 minutes in this series, and he has gone over 2.5 assists in two of the games. Over the last two games, Schroder’s teammates were only 4-of-10 on potential assists. He still touches the ball enough in this offense to get this over.
Anthony Davis (Lakers) – Over 2.5 Blocks
Davis has been a shot-blocking machine this postseason with 3.7 blocks per game, up from 2.0 in the regular season. Maybe that is why Davis was left off the All-NBA Defense teams this week, but his absence there should be nice added motivation for his Game 5.
Davis also had no blocks in Game 4 after having multiple blocks in the first nine playoff games. In fact, Davis has gone over 2.5 blocks in 8-of-10 playoff games this year. We will count on him being engaged enough to do it again in this one as the Lakers look to close out the Warriors.
