3 NBA Props for Wednesday: Favors Over/Under 11.5 Points?

The NBA Props article offers data-driven analysis on player prop bets for each day’s slate using The Action Network’s public betting data along with the tools at FantasyLabs and Sports Insights to highlight notable props.

Wednesday’s analysis will cover the following three props from the Rockets-Jazz game starting at 8 p.m. ET:

• Derrick Favors (Utah) over/under 11.5 points?
• Clint Capela (Houston) over/under 11.5 rebounds?
• Chris Paul (Houston) over/under 5 rebounds?

All lines accurate as of 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday, May 2. Looking for more props? Check out the FantasyLabs NBA Player Props tool.

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Derrick Favors Under 11.5 Points (-125)

8 p.m. ET | TNT

Sharps pounded the under in this game, prompting reverse line movement, which is always a positive when betting the under on an individual points prop. But regardless of where bettors' money lies, the bottom line is that Favors — a 265-pound traditional big man — becomes marginalized in this matchup with the pace-and-space, Moreyballing Rockets. After logging 32.8 minutes per game in Round 1 against Oklahoma City, Favors was deployed for only 26 minutes against Houston in Game 1, continuing a season-long trend where he's failed to top 28.1 minutes in a game against the Rockets. It's no wonder that head coach Quin Snyder went away from Favors in Game 1, as his team had a -33.7 Net Rating in the 14 minutes that both Favors and Rudy Gobert were on the floor.

In my experience, the NBA is one of the tougher sports to find value on props — books can leverage the NBA's large sample sizes and relative predictability, plus you can literally be at the mercy of which way the ball bounces — so one of the best practices is to find situations where a change in playing time could tilt the odds in your favor, such as when the books were slow to catch on to Domantas Sabonis overtaking Myles Turner over the last few games of the Pacers-Cavs Round 1 series. Favors has averaged 11.3 points in 31.7 minutes per game so far in the playoffs, and he's scored only 30 points across 106:46 of playing time in four combined regular-season and postseason meetings with Houston this season — a rate that would require 42.9 minutes for him to hit 12 points. There's also the fact that Utah is a double-digit underdog, and during the regular season Favors averaged 3.1 fewer points per game in losses than in wins. I feel good about this prop — which means he'll probably go 6-for-6 in the first quarter, but process over results, right? Right?

Clint Capela Over 11.5 Rebounds (-114)

8 p.m. ET | TNT

The Rockets don't have a jersey sponsorship yet, but Windex might be considering a deal considering how well Capela cleans the glass. Capela leads the league with 13.8 rebounds per game in the playoffs, securing at least 12 in 5-of-6 games, including Game 1 of this series. He's almost always the lone big man on the floor for Houston, which has enabled him to reel in 24.9% of available rebounds this postseason, the highest rate of any player who averages at least 18 minutes per game. In four meetings with the Jazz during the regular season and postseason combined, he's pulled down 48 boards in 109:55 of playing time, a rate that would require just 27.5 minutes to get to 12 rebounds.

Chris Paul Under 5 Rebounds (-105)

8 p.m. ET | TNT

I'm not sure why the books don't set this prop to 4.5 or 4.0 — it might be because Paul had two nine-rebound games against the Jazz way back in December — but he's averaging 4.0 rebounds per game in the playoffs.  And over his last 11 games dating back to the regular season, he's been under five rebounds nine times. I like those odds.

Pictured above: Derrick Favors
Photo credit: Chris Nicoll – USA TODAY Sports