Game 3 of the NBA Finals take place tonight, which means there's plenty of value over at PrizePicks.
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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 slate in NBA Playoffs slate.
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Jimmy Butler Less Than 25.5 Points
In the opening-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks, Jimmy Butler averaged 37.2 points per game.
While he's still impacting winning in a positive way, his scoring has been on the decline. In the 14 playoff games over the last three rounds, Butler is averaging 23.8 points per game. He has scored less than this 25.5 number in nine of those games.
In the first round, Butler shot 59.7% from the field on 23.8 field goal attempts per game. That volume and efficiency was unsustainable for him, as he's a career 46.7% shooter from the field in the regular season and a career 46.1% shooter in the postseason. Sure enough, he's averaging 18.8 field goal attempts and shooting 42.2% from the field over the last 14 games.
He's averaging 17 points per game and shooting 39.5% from the field in this series. In the fourth quarter of Game 2, he knocked down several clutch buckets, but he still finished with just 21 points. I have confidence that he goes under this number because his big scoring performances are aided by free throws.
Butler has averaged at least eight free-throw attempts per game in each of the first three rounds. However, the Nuggets don't foul much, and as a result, he has attempted just five combined in the first two games.
If the Nuggets keep Butler off the free-throw line in Game 3, it's likely he doesn't reach this mark.
Michael Porter Jr. More Than 2.5 3s Made
In the first two games in this series, Michael Porter Jr. made just three of his 17 3-point attempts. You may be thinking that it's ludicrous to bet on a player to knock down three triples when he has three combined in the first two games.
However, I like to bet on volume.
Porter is a 41.7% 3-point shooter who gets a lot of open 3s playing with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. I don't expect him to keep shooting 17% from beyond the arc much longer.
He doesn't even have to shoot well to surpass this projection.
In Game 1, Porter started off the 2-for-11 from 3 but missed his last seven attempts to finish the game. With one more 3, he would have surpassed this mark while shooting just 27% from behind the arc. If he shoots 3-for-9 tonight, that's still just 33.3%, but it's good enough to hit this number.
If a shooter of Porter's caliber gets nine 3-point attempts or more, I like his chances of surpassing this number.
