There is only one NBA playoff game tonight, as the Golden State Warriors look to advance past the Houston Rockets into the second round of the NBA playoffs.
Will Steph Curry break out of his funk and lead his team to victory? Or will Alperen Sengun and Fred VanVleet keep the Rockets' season alive?
Here are the three best NBA PrizePicks player predictions for Friday, May 2nd.
Our PrizePicks Cheat Sheet helps bettors by comparing lines from PrizePicks vs. our daily NBA projections >>
There is only one NBA playoff game tonight, as the Golden State Warriors look to advance past the Houston Rockets into the second round of the NBA playoffs.
Will Steph Curry break out of his funk and lead his team to victory? Or will Alperen Sengun and Fred VanVleet keep the Rockets' season alive?
Here are the three best NBA PrizePicks player predictions for Friday, May 2nd.
Our PrizePicks Cheat Sheet helps bettors by comparing lines from PrizePicks vs. our daily NBA projections >>
Friday’s Best NBA PrizePicks Player Predictions
This Season: 79-58-1
Steph Curry has not shot well in either of his last two games. After scoring at least 31 points in two of the first three games in this series, he's combined for just 30 points in his last two contests. In Game 5, he scored a series-low 13 points, shooting 33.3% from the field in just 23 minutes.
But for as poorly as Curry has played in his last two games, I'm ready to back him to have a huge performance in a clinching scenario. In Game 5, Curry played 14 minutes fewer than in any other game in this series. Considering he played only about two-thirds of his normal minutes, had he played those other 14, he likely would have topped 20 points. That still wouldn't be enough to get him over this number, but it shows just how skewed his Game 5 performance is by playing time.
Though Curry struggled against the Rockets during the regular season, never scoring more than 27 points in a single game, he's proven in the postseason that he can put together incredible performances against this defense. Curry averaged 24.5 points per game during the regular season, so I expect him to easily shake off his last two shooting performances.
Alperen Sengun has had a great series, averaging 20.8 points and 11 rebounds per game. Both of those stats are higher than his season average. Yet, when you add both together, he's still below this listed number for tonight's game. Is PrizePicks overvaluing him? I think so.
Sengun has topped this number in three of his five games in this series. However, he's only done so in convincing fashion once. Two of the three games in which he topped 32 combined points + rebounds saw him record 33 and 35. Those still count as wins, but his less thans have been a lot more convincing, as those two games saw him record just 24 and 26 combined points + rebounds.
In Game 4, Sengun scored 31 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, skewing his average in this series. Because he's pulled down 11 or fewer rebounds in four of his last five games, Sengun will need to score at least 22 in this contest to hit the more than on this player prediction, something he's only done twice in this series.
Fred VanVleet has taken over offensively for the Rockets in the last two games. He's scored 25 and 26 points, respectively, as he's upped his series average to 17 points per game. He only scored 17 points in his first two games combined, but he also shot 25% or worse from the field in each of those games. Since he shot 37.8% from the field during the regular season, it seems safe to back him to continue to score in this series.
VanVleet has shot 61.5% in each of his last two games. It'd be shocking to see him hit that number for a third consecutive game, but he doesn't need to for this more than to hit. He was already clearing the more than by so many points that even if he reverts to his season average, as he did when he shot 35.7% in Game 3, he can still top this number. He scored 17 in that game.
Make sure to check out our other best bets for Friday:
Phil Wood is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Phil, check out his archive and follow him @Phil_Wood_Jr.
