Top 3 NBA Betting Picks for Monday, April 18 (2022)
After an excellent set of Sunday games (and a hit on a +250 parlay!), I’m back with another set of bets for Monday’s action. Favorites have dominated the NBA playoffs thus far, and I expect that trend to continue.
Here are my top NBA betting picks for Monday’s set of playoff games.
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1. 76ers -7.5 | -110 at BetMGM
The Philadelphia 76ers closed as five-point favorites over the Toronto Raptors for Game 1. They then won by 20, and Toronto appears to have lost three players—Scottie Barnes, Gary Trent Jr., and Thaddeus Young—to various ailments.
Yet Philadelphia is only a 7.5-point favorite. This feels like a flagrant underreaction to Saturday’s events for a handful of reasons. First, assuming that the three of Trent and Young both fail to play through their doubtful tags, that leaves Toronto with a greatly condensed rotation and a serious lack of depth at wing.
Injury woes could force Toronto to feature Chris Boucher, Khem Birch, and Yuta Watanabe for longer runs. Boucher has been a solid defender this year, but both Birch and Watanabe have been negative contributors on offense and defense, per FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR ratings.
Next, Barnes is out, and he led Toronto’s starters in box plus/minus in Game 1 at -10. He racked up 15 points by going 4-for-6 from the floor and 7-for-9 from the penalty stripe, and he led the team in rebounds (10) and assists (8). Toronto will seriously struggle without him and probably can’t cover.
2. OG Anunoby Over 16.5 Points | -120 at DK Sportsbook
Even though I don’t think the Raptors can win (or cover), they won’t take this one sitting down. Like the spread, I don’t think the books adjusted this line enough following Toronto’s injury news. OG Anunoby will have a much bigger role to play without Barnes, and he would get even more run if Trent or Young have to sit.
I also love this prop because Anunoby doesn’t need more run to cash it. The wing racked up 20 points in Game 1 on 9-for-15 from the floor and 2-for-5 from deep. He scored exactly that number against Philadelphia in the lone regular season game he played against them, too.
Anunoby averaged 17.1 points per game this year. With the 76ers giving up 21.8 points per game to small forwards this year—ninth-most in the association—it’s safe to pencil Anunoby in for yet another solid performance.
3. Parlay: PHI ML + UTA ML + GSW ML | +156 (.5u) at DK Sportsbook
Betting favorites have gone 7-1 in the playoffs thus far. The Minnesota Timberwolves remained the only underdog to successfully upset a favorite after yesterday’s four-game card—although the Brooklyn Nets certainly tried their best to join them.
I would not be surprised to see betting favorites start the playoffs 10-1. Of tonight’s underdogs, we have the Barnes-less Raptors, the Doncic-less Mavericks, and the Murray-and-MPJ-less Nuggets. None of those teams can go on a deep playoff run without those players. Further, two of them are on the road, as only the Mavericks get the benefit of home-court advantage.
I’ve already mapped out why I expect the 76ers to win. But I like the Jazz here because they still beat a Doncic-less Mavericks team despite almost everything having gone wrong for them on Saturday. I also like the Warriors here because they’re getting healthy at the right time—the Nuggets have faced Golden State’s core of Curry, Thompson, and Green (possibly Poole, too) just once all year, at it resulted in their 16-point Game 1 loss.
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Isaiah Sirois is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Isaiah, check out his archive and follow him @is_sirois.