NBA

NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Friday 5/27/22

Austan Kas  —  @AustanKas May 27th, 2022
Marcus Smart's steals prop is a solid value for Friday's Game 6. Which prop bets should you zero in on?

Player props can be useful in a variety of ways, from taking advantage of them straight up within the betting market to measuring a player's potential to produce in daily fantasy basketball.

Here we'll focus on utilizing our projections and a slew of other tools to help make money betting player props. For this article, we are using the odds provided at NBA Finals odds to pinpoint spots where value can be had tonight.

The prop-betting experience on FanDuel Sportsbook is getting even more fun. You can track your player props with real-time updates and place in-game props with ease.

Please note that betting lines and our player projections may change throughout the day after this article is published.

Jayson Tatum Over 6.5 Rebounds (-110)

In the past two games, Jayson Tatum has snagged 12 and 8 rebounds. He's gone for at least seven boards in three of five games versus the Miami Heat in the playoffs and is averaging 7.8 boards for the series.

In the regular season, Tatum pulled down 8.0 rebounds per night. In three regular-season meetings with Miami, Tatum averaged 8.3 boards per game and went over 6.5 rebounds in two of the contests.

Our model sees gobs of value here -- especially with each side priced at -110 -- as we project Tatum to total 8.6 rebounds in Friday's Game 6.

Marcus Smart Over 1.5 Steals (+180)

Marcus Smart has tallied multiple steals once in this series, but hear me out.

Smart has played just three of the five games, and in one of the three outings (Game 5), he logged only 23.7 minutes due to foul trouble. In the other two games, he played 40.3 and 36.6 minutes, swiping 3 steals in one of those appearances and none in the other.

Smart should play huge minutes today in a home closeout game in which the Boston Celtics can punch their ticket to the NBA Finals, and big minutes are always a positive when targeting any over.

In the regular season, Smart averaged 1.7 steals per night, and that's exactly what we have him projected for in this one. That's obviously not two steals, but I like his chances to get two pilfers more than the 35.7% odds implied by the +180 price.

This one is worth a roll of the dice.