Filip Tomic
An exciting night of basketball awaits us this Saturday at Madison Square Garden, where the New York Knicks host the Detroit Pistons for Game 1 of their first-round series. I have gone in depth and prepared a Same Game Parlay at +332 odds, and you can find it below.
Also check out our NBA playoffs predictions page, but without further ado let’s dive into my Pistons vs Knicks SGP!
Karl-Anthony Towns 3+ made threes (+240)
Cade Cunningham to record 8+ assists (-230)
Same Game Parlay odds: +332
Karl-Anthony Towns 3+ made threes (+240)
With Jalen Brunson playing in just 4 games since returning from an ankle injury, the Knicks might have to turn to Karl-Anthony Towns for points in this game. KAT was a very successful second fiddle to Brunson during the regular season, finishing the year averaging 24.4 points per game — which ranked 12th in the league. He was also top 20 in field-goal efficiency at 52.6%, while from 3-point land he shot a career high 42%. Those are all very encouraging numbers if you’re a Knicks fan entering this postseason, and New York is looking to make amends for flaming out in the second round last year against the Pacers. Playing the inexperienced Pistons should do them well even though they lost the regular-season series 3-1 the postseason is a completely different animal. Towns put up really solid numbers in 3 games vs Detroit, knocking down almost 44% of his threes on 2.3 makes per game. With the Pistons ranking just 25th in opponent 3-point percentage this season (36.6%) and that number going up to a whopping 43.6% in their last 3 games, you have to wonder can they do anything about Towns in this series. I’m backing KAT to make some noise in the series opener.
Cade Cunningham to record 8+ assists (-230)
Cunningham successfully returned from his late March calf injury, recording 33 points and 7.3 assists per game in 4 games played to close out the regular season. We all know how much he means to this Pistons team; he was the fourth-highest assist man during the regular season with 9.1 dimes per game. He will have to grow up fast, though, since — along with most of his Pistons teammates — he has no postseason experience. But that shouldn’t stop him from having some big games against the Knicks in this series. Cunningham torched them on a regular basis in the 4 meetings this year, averaging 30.8 points and 8.3 assists per game — which resulted in 3 wins, 2 of which were at Madison Square Garden. He has seen all the coverages the Knicks have already and so far they haven’t had an answer for him. In his last 10 regular-season games he missed out on 8 assists only 3 times, players of his stature usually turn it up a notch in the postseason. Let’s hope that’s the case today, as well.
