Jonquel Jones, Jackie Young Among Players to Watch in WNBA Finals

Hopefully you checked out my overall series preview, and if you did you know it got a bit wordy, so let’s cut right to the chase on this one, as we already set the scene over there.

Jonquel Jones

We have to start with the player who is going to be the most relevant to bettors in this series. (At least bettors who are coming here for picks.) I brought this up on Green Dot Daily last week, but the transformation in Jones’ minutes in the postseason has been truly incredible. In fact, JJ’s season can kind of be broken into three sections.

Regular season before the All-Star break: 22.6 minutes per game

Regular season after the All-Star break: 27.0 minutes per game

Postseason: 35.8 minutes per game.

The six highest minutes totals Jones has played all season are literally the six postseason games she has played, and it’s clear that Sandy Brondello had a plan to build to this moment, and it’s working to perfection. Just look at the progression of minutes here.

This increase in minutes is leading to Jones averaging 16.5 points and 12.8 rebounds per game in the postseason (up from 11.3 and 8.4 in the regular season), and now she gets to go against an Aces team whose biggest weakness is on the glass. In five games against the Aces this season, Jones is averaging 10.6 rebounds per game, but in the lone game in which she even came close to this minutes load (the Commissioner’s Cup Final), she tallied 15 rebounds and was named MVP.

Naturally, there are a lot of ways to bet on JJ. For Game 1, the books have posted her rebound prop at 11.5. That sounds like a lot. It’s the highest rebound prop I’ve seen in the W this season, but I still love the over. I personally have JJ projected for 15.4 rebounds per game in this series, and while that is a comically high number, it has enough clearance that even if I turn the manual knob down a bit to get it to around 14.5, this is still likely to be a play I am on every game this series.

I also am going to play Jones for Finals MVP at +3500 (DraftKings). Getting this number is absolutely wild to me after she quite literally won MVP in the Commissioner’s Cup Final. We gave that out as a best bet, and now they are determined to give us a terrible line all over again. We ride!

Sadly, the market that I was most excited to bet Jones on is not available yet, but I am hoping that maybe by Sunday it will appear in at least one book: Jones to lead the series in rebounds. Not only do I love JJ’s rebounds, it’s a perfect storm of also being low on rebound props for both A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart in this series—her two likeliest competitors for the series lead in rebounds.

Both Wilson and Stewart played in all five games between these two teams this season and neither topped eight rebounds in a single one of those five games. Ironically, it appears as though the two best players on the planet tend to cancel each other out a bit when they face off, especially on the glass.

I am not going to be targeting Wilson’s rebound unders per se, but given that they have her projected for 9.5 rebounds in Game 1, there would almost certainly be value on Jones to lead the series in rebounds should that prop appear.

Chelsea Gray

Let’s lead by saying that it is somewhat absurd that you can right now bet the reigning Finals MVP for this year’s award at +3000 (MGM). Yes, there is likely to be a push to get Wilson a Finals MVP should the Aces win a second straight, but the fact remains that Wilson has really struggled against this version of the Liberty (15.6 points and 6.2 rebounds per game on 43.5 percent shooting—all well below her season averages), and Gray has consistently shown she plays her best when the lights are brightest.

She also has played very well against the Liberty this season, and with a very high floor. She is averaging 17.0 points per game in the five games and has reached at least 15 points in all five games. Her current points prop is set at 15.5, and I like the over (so do others clearly, since it opened at 14.5).

Gray’s assist floor has been really high as well, averaging 7.4 assists per game against the Liberty this season and collecting at least five every game. For bettors who likely to put together over-heavy same-game parlays, Gray’s points and assists both offer solid floors to build on.

Jackie Young

Similar to Gray, Young has an incredibly high floor against the Liberty this season. It makes sense too, since the Liberty have often turned to Sabrina Ionescu to guard Young. Young has tallied: 15, 16, 16, 16, and 24 points in the five matchups. Her points prop is a bit higher at 18.5, but for SGP shoppers, she offers a nice floor to build on.

Assorted Finals MVP longshots

Given the relative struggles of both Wilson and Stewart in these games this season, it makes sense that I am showing a lot of value down the board for Finals MVP this season. It might seem like overthinking it to go right past the big names, but if we look at the last few seasons, three of the last four winners were not the favorites going into the series (Gray, Kahleah Copper, and Emma Meesseman), and JJ just grabbed Commissioner’s Cup MVP this season despite being 30:1 by the books.

As such, in addition to Jones (+3500, DK) and Gray (+3000, MGM), I’m going to bet Betnijah Laney (+6600, MGM) and Courtney Vandersloot (+20000, MGM). Laney has, similar to Jones, really taken off in the postseason. Her points per game follow a very similar arc to JJ’s minutes:

Regular season before the All-Star break: 10.3 points per game

Regular season after the All-Star break: 14.9 points per game

Postseason: 17.0 points per game

Of all the players who have taken time to adjust to the new roster but are really in their groove right now, Laney is tops among them. Plus, she has the narrative edge of having been the player who was in New York before it was a superteam. If she goes out and averages 20 a game this series (she has scored 19 or more in five of their six games this postseason) while Stewie and Sab struggle a bit, there’s a very real chance of her lifting the award. Certainly more than 1.49 percent! 

For Sloot, it’s just as simple as: Do I see a world in which she averages 10 assists a game and hits a couple late, clutch baskets in a gritty series in which no one’s numbers really pop? Do I see that more than 0.5 percent of the time? Yes to both, but I won’t be putting more than a dollar here in reality on the longest shot by far of the bunch.

Bets

• Jonquel Jones over 11.5 rebounds Game 1 (and likely throughout the series, but always keep an eye in the app)
• Jonquel Jones Finals MVP +3500, DraftKings
• Chelsea Gray: Over 15.5 points for Game 1
• Chelsea Gray: Finals MVP +3000 BetMGM
• Betnijah Laney: Finals MVP +6600 BetMGM (favorite of the Finals MVP bets)
• Courtney Vandersloot Finals MVP +20000 (very small)
• Jackie Young points prop for SGPs

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