NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Friday 4/29/22

Player props can be useful in a variety of ways, from taking advantage of them straight up within the betting market to measuring a player's potential to produce in daily fantasy basketball.

Here we'll focus on utilizing our projections and a slew of other tools to help make money betting player props. For this article, we are using the odds provided at FanDuel Sportsbook to pinpoint spots where value can be had tonight.

The prop-betting experience on FanDuel Sportsbook is getting even more fun. You can track your player props with real-time updates and place in-game props with ease.

Please note that betting lines and our player projections may change throughout the day after this article is published.

D'Angelo Russell Over 16.5 Points (-114)

numberFire's model is suggesting we go hard at the over on D'Angelo Russell's points prop (16.5).

Our algorithm projects Russell for 19.5 points on 16.1 field goal attempts, thus making him around 74.5% likely to go over on his prop. Even at the -114 odds, that's plenty of value.

Russell, in the series, has averaged just 13.0 points in his 33.8 minutes while taking 13.0 field goal attempts per game. Specifically, he has had 10, 11, 22, 10, and 12 points. The difference in the 22-point game? Volume. He had 21 shot attempts in that game with no more than 12 in any other.

We're simply projecting him for higher shot volume tonight -- plus some better efficiency. Russell is shooting 39.3% from three in the series but just 32.3% from the field overall, compared to splits of 34.0% and 41.1%, respectively, in the regular season.

Karl-Anthony Towns Over 2.5 Assists (-134)

This line looks way too low.

Karl-Anthony Towns is projected for 3.9 assists tonight over 35.7 minutes, which works out to 0.11 assists per minute. That's the same as his four-year average, his season average, and his average if you use expected assist rate from potential assists.

Towns' assists per game have been cut in half (1.8 in this series from 3.6 in the regular season), so what's the deal? Teammate conversion.

Only 32.1% of Towns' potential assists in this series have been converted into assists, down from a team average of 53.0% on the season (and 53.1% is the NBA average, as well). That anticipated regression indicates extra helpers in the assist column for Towns.

At his projection of 3.9 assists, he should be considered around 74.7% likely to go over this prop.

Ja Morant Under 8.5 Rebounds (-130)

Ja Morant has really, really been rebounding well in the playoffs.

He's averaging 8.8 boards per game and 0.24 per minute. That's well above his regular-season numbers: 5.7 boards per game and 0.17 per minute.

His career average rate is actually just 0.14.

What's changing here? Rebounding chances.

Morant is hauling in virtually the same rate of his rebounding opportunities (57.9%) as he did in the regular season (57.7%) but is much more active on the glass right now.

He's seeing 15.2 rebounding chances per game and thus should have 8.8 rebounds per contest. In the regular season, he averaged just 9.8 rebound chances per game (for 5.7 expected rebounds per game, in line with his actual rate of 5.6).

So, we should like the over, right?

Well, only if we really expect Morant to have so many chances game after game. He currently ranks 11th in the postseason in rebound chances per game, which is just abnormal for what he did in the regular season.

Morant also averaged just 5.5 rebounds per game in regular-season meetings with the Minnesota Timberwolves -- 0.16 per minute.