The Denver Nuggets look to capture their first NBA title Monday night when they take on the Miami Heat in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. With Miami's back against the wall, there will be plenty of value on PrizePicks.
A quick refresher if you aren’t familiar with PrizePicks: you can combine up to five different player squares to pay out up to 10x your entry.
You can do a Flex Play or a Power Play. A Flex Play gives you lesser odds, but you can win money if you do not nail every pick. A Power Play is all-or-nothing.
Here’s how I would approach today’s NBA Finals game.
What is PrizePicks? A daily fantasy operator — meaning they’re available in more states (30) than sports betting is! — PrizePicks offers a unique opportunity for action on player props in which you parlay two or more plays together.
Bam Adebayo More Than 20.5 Points
After struggling offensively over the final five games of the Eastern Conference Finals, Bam Adebayo has bounced back in a big way in the NBA Finals.
In this series, Adebayo is averaging 22.3 points per game. He has surpassed this projection in three of the first four games in this series and then was hooked on 20 points on Friday night.
For Adebayo, scoring has been a bit tougher over the last two games. With Nikola Jokic as the closest defender, the Heat have shot 24% over the last two matchups with Adebayo shooting 37.5% from the field. Despite that, he scored 22 points in Game 3 and 20 in Game 4. He has also gone 12-for-14 from the free-throw line over the past two games.
Adebayo is averaging 41.3 minutes per game in this series, playing 40 minutes in each of the first four games. He has also managed to stay out of foul trouble despite the assignment of defending Jokic.
Adebayo has taken 19 field-goal attempts in three of the first four games, and he's shooting 48.3% from the field in the playoffs. With a slightly more efficient night, he should surpass this projection for the fourth time in this series.
Bruce Brown More Than 4 Rebounds
In Game 3, I was on Michael Porter Jr.'s 3s, and he went 0-for-3 from beyond the arc and 0-for-2 in Game 4. However, he did score 11 points his last time out. His points line is at 10.5, which is tempting, but if he starts slowly again, he will have a quick hook.
Instead, Nuggets head coach Michael Malone will turn to Bruce Brown.
Brown is averaging 26.8 minutes per game in this series and 29.5 over the past two games. In that time, he has pulled down four rebounds in three of the first four games.
For Brown, four seems to be the sweet spot. In the regular season, he averaged 4.1 rebounds per game, and now he's averaging 3.9 rebounds per game in the postseason and four in this series.
Brown had just two rebounds in Game 3, which coincides with Jamal Murray's triple-double. However, he had five rebounds in both of the first two games.
Five rebounds would give us a little more cushion in case he loses one to a stats correction. He's averaging 6.4 rebound chances per game in this series, so we just need him to convert four of them to hit this number.
