NBA Player Props and Best Bets: Huge Nights for Shai and Jokic and a Nuggets-Clippers SGP

It’s NFL Draft day, but it’s also one of the best days to find NBA player prop bets for the Thursday playoffs.

Yesterday’s game started with Jaylen Brown dropping 36 points to knock off the Orlando Magic sans Jayson Tatum and Donovan Mitchell’s 30 points led the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 2-0 lead over the Miami Heat. The day ended with the Houston Rockets tying the Golden State Warriors at 1-1 after Jimmy Butler’s hard fall caused him to leave the game after just eight minutes.

Thursday’s slate begins with the Detroit Pistons hosting the New York Knicks. The Oklahoma City Thunder will then visit the Memphis Grizzlies before the Los Angeles Clippers close the evening by welcoming in the Denver Nuggets.

Read our in-depth predictions for Nuggets vs. Clippers and Knicks vs. Pistons.

Here are my top five NBA playoff player prop bets for Thursday.

Best NBA Prop Bets for Thursday, April 24

Cade Cunningham Over 28.5 Points

So what it might’ve taken all of one game to get the playoff jitters out of his system, Cunningham scored 33 points on 52.4 percent shooting in his last game. He also did it with just one made three, which shows that he’s succeeding in getting to his spots even against the Knicks’ physical defense.

Cunningham played 42 minutes in his last game and feels like a lock for at least 40 nearly every game, barring a blowout. This will be his first taste of playoff action in front of his home fans, and with the Pistons geo-blocking ticket sales, I expect him to show out in front of a raucous environment.

Karl-Anthony Towns 2+ Threes

Arguably the Pistons biggest success in this series has been taking away the three ball from the Knicks, who only made 10 shots per game on 32.6 percent shooting. Towns is also just 1-5 from deep in this series and only scored 10 points in Game 2, and yet I like him to bounce back on Thursday.

Towns has been in the headlines for his disappearing act on Monday, and I believe that it will become a focus to get him going early. Towns made two threes per game and shot 42 percent from downtown for the season as a whole, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the greatest shooting big man ever knock down a pair of long-rangers.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Over 31.5 Points

Shai’s MVP services have largely not been needed in this series as the Thunder beat the Grizzlies by an average of 35 points per game. Gilgeous-Alexander only had 15 in Game 1 and 27 in Game 2, but if any game in this series is going to be close, it should be Memphis’ first game back in front of its home fans.

SGA tortured the Grizzlies during the regular season with games of 37, 41, 32, and 35 points, and Memphis has provided essentially no defensive resistance in this series. He was uncharacteristically inefficient in shooting the ball to start the series, but it’s only a matter of time until he regresses to the mean (in a good way).

Nikola Jokic Over 26.5 Points

Jokic split the over/under with games of 29 and 26 points, but despite shooting 50 percent from the field and 41.7 percent from three, he actually missed a fair amount of shots he normally always drops through the bucket. He also shot only 62.5 percent at the free-throw line, which tells me that he can be much more valuable as a scorer in this series.

The Clippers have a tremendous defense, but nobody in the world can guard Jokic. Jamal Murray has also started to come alive, which means that the Clippers defenders can’t send all of their attention to Jokic, who is arguably most dangerous as a passer.

Jaren Jackson Jr. Under 5.5 Rebounds

There’s a well-documented history of Jackson Jr. being the most frustrating big man in the league when it comes to rebounding. He had six in his last outing, but he only had three in Game 1 and went under in three of his final five regular season games, including just one in Games 81 and 82.

The Thunder have been better than the Grizzlies on the boards, claiming 53.1 percent of available rebounds in the series. Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein have also been aggressive on the boards and had 11 and 10, respectively, in the last matchup.

NBA Same-Game Parlay (+294) at FanDuel

-Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Clippers (-5)

• James Harden 20+ points: Split the over/under but has been in rhythm and gotten to his spots well, and he finished the regular season with 20+ in five straight games.

• Kawhi Leonard over 3.5 assists: I can see this being a high-scoring game, meaning more assists, and Leonard went over in three of his last five and had five assists last game.

• Michael Porter Jr. under 12.5 points: Is losing minutes to Russell Westbrook and hasn’t been impactful from three since the Clippers have largely taken that away.

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