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There are 12 NBA games on Wednesday, giving us plenty of options for our best bets. Some teams are on the second half of a back-to-back, so we will have to monitor the injury reports and players sitting out. Below, we explain our favorite NBA props today.
NBA Props and Betting Odds
Try using NBA betting bonuses available on DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics to lock in these picks.
Sheppard Getting More Minutes for the Rockets
There are a couple reasons to like Reed Sheppard to have a good game tonight, with two most important ones being the matchup against a bad Wizards defense, and the fact that he has started to play more.
He has played 26 and 29 minutes the last two games, and the best part about that is neither of those games were blowouts, which this game could easily turn into against the Wizards and should lead to more playing time for Sheppard. The Wizards are among the worst defenses in the NBA and are a good matchup for basically any type of player, so that obviously applies to Sheppard too. Overall, they have the second-worst defensive net rating in the NBA.
The one common theme in the games that Sheppard has gone over is that it was against bad defenses. He has hit this over in five of nine games this year, but if you filter out the games against top 10 defenses according to net rating, he has gone over in four of five of those games. He has also gone over in four of five games in November, as his playing time has ticked up. In a soft matchup, let’s roll with Sheppard tonight.
Knueppel Stays Hot vs. Bucks
Kon Knueppel has gone over this number in four straight games, which normally would be something that would scare us off, but not in this situation. The thing with this play is that LaMelo Ball is still out, and he has been out for four games in a row, which just so happens to coincide with the four straight games in which Knueppel has gone over.
The biggest thing here that makes the over a play for a fifth time in a row is the volume of shots he is putting up. In the four games without Ball, he is averaging 16.8 FGA per game, up from 9.8 in games with LaMelo. In these four games he has taken: 17, 16, 23 and 11 shots.
So, while his usage rate was the lowest in that game than the other three, not to a super concerning degree. The matchup against the Bucks is not fantastic, but it’s not a complete stay away either, and we are playing the volume in this game which should continue with Ball still out.
Jaquez Jr. Has Another Key Performance Against the Cavaliers
If you are sensing a theme here in that we are backing players that have consistently gone over this prop, you would be right. Normally, the strategy we like to go with is fading recent results and betting on positive regression, but not tonight. Like the Knueppel play above, this is another situation where we are taking advantage of an injury absence.
This time, it is Bam Adebayo who is out for the Heat. Jaime Jaquez Jr. has gone over this number in three straight games without Bam, but the most important thing is just how much he is going over. In these three games he has a combined 35, 33 and 42 PRAs, easily clearing this over.
This last game against the Cavs is the game he had 42, granted that game went into overtime, but he still went over by a mile. The bummer here is that the Cavs are resting their top three players in Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Darius Garland, but it is only a six-point spread so the game should be relatively close, and we should continue to see Jaquez Jr. rack up the stat sheet once again.
