Odds boosts are exactly that: Promotions from sportsbooks where they move tin your favor on certain bets. Many of them are prop bets, hoping you’ll put a few dollars on someone to hit a home run or a certain team to score a certain number of goals and still win. Our job is to highlight some of those NBA odds boosts and give you some NBA picks to bet on, if it’s smart to buy into what the sportsbooks are selling. We scour the internet trying to find the best odds boosts for you every day from every sport.
There are a lot of odds boosts out there today with two NBA games in action, and like yesterday we’re going to separate these into two sections. We’ll dive into the several NBA odds boosts involving James Harden, then we’ll delve into the NBA picks that involve the other players in the Rockets – Thunder game as well as the Bucks – Heat matchup. Let’s jump into the best NBA odds boosts we found on OddsShopper today.
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NBA Odds + NBA Picks
NBA Pick: James Harden Scoring
Every sportsbook has at least one odds boosts out on Harden’s performance in Game 7 for the Houston Rockets. He’s the type of volume scorer that allows sportsbooks to get creative with their offerings, so I couldn’t just pick one to highlight in this section. Instead, we’ll look at the best four I found today. You can make the final call on which ones suit your desires on this Wednesday.
The easiest one for Harden to complete is PointsBet’s offering of +150 odds on Harden recording a double-double. He’s done it 23 times in his postseason career, including twice in this series. But it’s a tough ask from Harden in this particular situation. FanDuel offered the best odds on Harden to score 40 or more points at +320, and that bet is good regardless of the result.
BetMGM just requires Harden to score 30 points for its odds boost, but the Rockets also have to win for the +130 odds they are offering. DraftKings also requires Houston to win for you to win its bet on Harden making at least five 3-pointers, which is set at +230 odds.
In three previous Game 7s, Harden has averaged 26.7 points per game and shot 42.4% from the field. That includes just 28.6% from 3-point range. The last five times Harden’s team has faced elimination, the guard has averaged 25.2 points per game, shot 29.3% from the field and 31.8% from behind the arc, all in losing efforts. The last time he helped his team win an elimination game, he scored 31 points on 7-of-20 shooting. That was the 2015 Western Conference Semifinals against the Clippers.
NBA Pick: Dennis Schroder Scores 20+ Points (+120 PointsBet)
I kept trying to find a good Chris Paul odds boost for you in this spot, but all of them required Oklahoma City to also win the game. I settled in on Schroder because he’s been a key player off the bench for the Thunder in the postseason. He’ll be on the floor for most of crunch time. Schroder is averaging 18.2 points per game in this series after missing six of the eight games in the bubble. He’s finally finding a nice rhythm within the offense. Schroder has been underrated part of why this series has lasted seven games.
When Oklahoma City is at its best, Schroder is scoring as we saw in Games 3 and 4. He scored 29 and 30 points in Thunder victories. He cooled off a bit in Game 6. Then again, no one had a good shooting night in that game on either side. This will be Schroder’s first experience in a Game 7. He has scored at least 20 points in a playoff game 10 times in his career. He’s going to need to have a good night if Oklahoma City is going to win. I expect he’ll rise to the occasion with some help from Paul.
NBA Pick: Goran Dragic Scores 25+ Points (+260 PointsBet)
This is one of those bets that makes so much sense that the odds confuse me. Granted, Dragic has only scored 25 points once in this postseason. It was Monday against Milwaukee in Game 1. But he’s scored at least 20 in every game of Miami’s sweep over Indiana. He was also within a bucket of 25 points in three of those four games. Dragic has been consistently good for the Heat in these playoffs, and he’s always hovered around the 25-point threshold. So it’s worth the risk at those odds to say he’ll surpass it again.
The Bucks are going to have to focus on defending Jimmy Butler better in Game 2, so that will open the floor for other Heat players to step up. Bam Adebayo is the obvious candidate, but Dragic has the ball in his hands on almost every possession, and he’s not afraid to call his own number.
If Milwaukee isn’t careful, Dragic could use the attention Adebayo and Butler will draw in order to have his best game of the postseason. Dragic is shooting 41.2% from 3-point range and made half of his shots in the first five playoffs games.
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