The excitement of the NBA postseason is finally here as the NBA Playoffs tip-off this Saturday! Opening day brings us a total of four tasty match-ups, two from each Conference. The first game begins as early as 1 pm ET in Cleveland between the Raptors and Cavaliers, so get your popcorn ready for an action packed weekend!
There are so many NBA Player Prop Bets to choose from, I’m bringing you my two favorite ones from Hawks vs Knicks and Rockets vs Lakers. Let’s take a deep dive into my bets for Saturday, April 18, also be sure to go over our NBA Picks for all four NBA postseason games!
Best NBA player prop bet: Jalen Johnson (ATL) 2+ Made Threes (-132)
After a breakout regular season, Jalen Johnson looking to carry over his stellar play into the postseason as his Hawks head to MSG for Game 1 of their first round series with the Knicks. The 24-year-old has improved his efficiency from three-point land by 4% compared to last year, his final 9 games of the regular season saw him shooting the deep ball just under 37% efficiency.
Three-point defense is one of the weaknesses of the Knicks team and I’m sure Johnson will look to exploit it right away. New York allowed the 10th most threes as a team, allowing opponents to shoot 36.2% from the perimeter which ranked only 20th in the NBA. They also allowed the 5th most threes to opposing Power Forwards, if I’m a Knicks fan I am not feeling confident at all they’ll be able to contain a hot shooter like Johnson here. In 3 meetings this season he averaged 45.5% makes from three-point land.
Best NBA player prop bet: Jabari Smith Jr. (HOU) 2+ Made Threes (-189)
The 4th year man ended the regular season shooting 39.4% from downtown in his last 9 games, putting up 18.2 ppg which is a significant increase compared to his season averages of 36.3% from three and 15.8 points per game. From a bettors’ perspective he has been one of the more reliable bets, cashing on this line 15 times in 20 games, while for the season he’s at a success rate of 70%. It gets even better in head-to-head meetings with the Lakers – that percentage goes up to 90% over the past 10 games, he enters Saturday on a streak of 5 games in a row with at least two threes made vs LA.
Most of the attention of the Lakers defense will be on containing Kevin Durant, Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson, I feel quite confident in Jabari Smith’s ability to pick and choose his spots around the perimeter. In 3 meetings this season he shot almost 53% from the field and 37% from downtown, making 3, 2 and 2 threes in those games. LA ranked 10th for threes allowed to opposing Power Forwards this regular season, on paper this looks like one of the more tempting Prop Bets for the series opener.
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