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.
Tyrese Maxey Under 19.5 Points (-120)
Tyrese Maxey's role took a hit when Joel Embiid returned.
In the past two games with Embiid back, Maxey has a measly 16.0% usage rate. That's actually only the sixth-highest on the Philadelphia 76ers, and it's about the same as his 16.6% usage rate from the regular season when Embiid and James Harden were on the floor together, per RotoGrinders' CourtIQ.
In those last two games, Maxey took just 11 and 10 shots, but he netted 21 and 18 points due to excellent efficiency from beyond the arc, making 7 of 11 three-point tries and 12 of 23 shots overall. Maxey hit 48.2% of his shots in the regular season and made 42.7% from deep, so while he's a good shooter, he's due for some negative regression from the field, especially on his three-balls.
Our model projects him to score 17.9 points in Game 5.
Deandre Ayton Double-Double/Suns Win (+122)
This is a good way to take advantage of Deandre Ayton being a matchup problem for the Dallas Mavericks.
We have Ayton forecasted to total 17.6 points and 11.5 boards. He's double-doubled in each of the past two games, and he averaged 17.2 points and 10.2 rebounds in the regular season. He's listed at -195 to double-double in today's Game 5.
As for the Phoenix Suns' chances to win, they come in at -260 on the moneyline and are 6.0-point home favorites. The -260 moneyline implies win odds of 72.2%. Those are pretty dang good, but our model likes the Suns even more, giving them a 74.1% chance to win. Phoenix won the first two games of this series -- both at home -- by 7 and 20 points.