Through four games of the NBA Finals, Stephen Curry made at least five 3-pointers and scored at least 29 points in all of them. In Game 4, he poured in 43 points, including 7-14 from 3.
That made the overs on his prop bets in the scoring and 3-point markets locks, right?
Welcome to another edition of "There's No Such Thing as a Lock."
Curry was held to 16 points on 7-22 shooting in Game 5. He was 0-9 from 3. It was the first time in his playoff career that he did not make a single 3-pointer. It wasn't an issue for the Warriors, who won 104-94 over the Celtics anyway. Bettors, however, weren't as fortunate.
BetMGM closed Curry's point total at 30.5 for Game 5 with 81 percent of all bets on the over.
At DraftKings, 71 percent of bets were on Curry to make over 5.5 3s at +125 odds. At FanDuel, the total was 4.5 3s with 88 percent of bets and 83 percent of handle on the over. His total threes closed at 4.5 at BetMGM as well, where 69 percent of bets and 65 percent of handle were on the over.
A whopping 90 percent of bets and 92 percent of handle at PointsBet were on over 4.5 3s made for Curry at even odds.
It was even worse for parlays.
As bettors searched for that "lock" to put into Same-Game Parlays, Curry's 3s looked like an obvious place to go. They didn't mind paying a higher juice to get in at a lower number. According to PointsBet, 70 percent of SGPs had Curry to make at least two or three 3-pointers in the game.
In 132 career playoff games entering Game 5, Curry fell short of two 3-pointers just nine times. The most recent performance with just one made 3 was in 2019.
