NBA First Basket Prop Pick: Bet Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart in Celtics vs. Raptors (Jan. 21)

NBA First Basket Prop Pick: Bet Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart in Celtics vs. Raptors (Jan. 21) article feature image
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Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images. Pictured: Marcus Smart #36 of the Boston Celtics, Fred VanVleet #23 of the Toronto Raptors.

NBA First Basket will break down some of his favorite NBA plays of the day here, and will track all his bets in The Action Network app.

NBA First Basket Prop Pick: Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart

OddsBrown (+360) I Smart (+1200)
Time5 p.m. ET
Book FanDuel | PointsBet

The Boston Celtics travel west to take on the Toronto Raptors on Saturday afternoon. Robert Williams (83% opening tip win rate) will face off against Scottie Barnes (44% win rate). Williams won his only tip-off against Barnes over the past two seasons.

The Celtics are playing without Jayson Tatum today, their leading scorer, which will shift the value to other Celtics players in terms of first basket chances. The Raptors allow the opposing point guard and small forward to score first the most often.

These two teams played against each other in early December, with Boston winning the tip, but Pascal Siakam cashed the first basket. Jaylen Brown scored the first team field goal for Boston.

The team that has won the opening tip-off has scored first 65% of the time this season. I like the Celtics to win the tip and will play both Brown and Marcus Smart to score first.

Free throws probably don't matter for Smart, so I'll play first field goal instead of first basket (free throws are not included at other books).

Pick: Smart +1200, 0.25 units (down to +900 at PB)

Pick: Brown +360, 0.75 units (down to +300)


Celtics vs. Raptors First Basket Prop Data

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