The NBA player prop highlighted below is from Wednesday night's lone playoff matchup:
- Portland Trail Blazers at Denver Nuggets: 9 p.m. ET on TNT
As a reminder, our FantasyLabs NBA Player Props Tool leverages our projections against odds offered at various sportsbooks and grades each prop on a scale of 1 to 10. All odds as of 5:15 p.m. ET. View live odds here.
Nuggets C Nikola Jokic
THE PICK: Over 7.5 Assists (-125)
Joker dished just six dimes in 41.5 minutes against the Blazers in Game 1, but you can chalk that up to variance: According to NBA Stats, his teammates converted just six of his 15 potential assists to buckets — well below their usual 66% clip. (For contrast, they converted on eight of Jamal Murray's nine potential assists.)
During the regular season, Joker averaged nearly a full assist more per game at home (7.7 in 31.0 minutes vs. 6.8 in 31.6), and he's been playing 37.9 minutes a night in the postseason, which easily puts him on pace to go over 7.5 even after accounting for the fact that Portland allows 6% fewer assists than the average team.
He's handed out at least eight assists in 24-of-45 (53%) home games, but after adjusting for the 22% increase in minutes (less Portland's below-average assist rate allowed), the over should have value up to -160.
Our NBA Player Models have him projected for 9.5 assists, and our props tool rates this prop a 10 in Bet Quality (59% win rate this season) with a 24% cushion between projected and implied total.
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