






























Griffin Wong previews tonight’s Game 5 between the Orlando Magic and the Detroit Pistons with his favorite prop bets.
In the NBA playoffs, a full season’s work can all come undone in a hurry. What happened over 82 games no longer matters; only seven games decide advancement. Because of the format, upsets aren’t quite as common in the NBA as they are in the NFL (single-elimination) or the MLB (three-game first-round series), but Cinderella runs are far from unusual.
After a stellar regular season in which they finished atop the East at 60-22, the Detroit Pistons find themselves on the brink, trailing 3-1 to the Orlando Magic, who had a relatively disappointing regular season at 45-37. The Pistons’ fight for survival will begin tonight at 7:10 p.m. ET in Detroit.
Both teams have a few health concerns, but Detroit is healthier overall. The only player on its injury report is Kevin Huerter, who’s questionable with an adductor strain, while the Magic will likely be without star forward Franz Wagner (calf).
The Pistons are 10.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-395 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 211.5. Orlando is +310 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ve broken down my three favorite prop bets from tonight’s do-or-die affair.
In Games 3 and 4, Bane provided exactly what the Magic were looking for when they dealt four first-round picks for him during the offseason. In those games, he averaged 23.5 points per game while shooting 63.2% from three-point range and making at least five threes in both games. He hasn’t shot the ball well from two-point range, converting on just 30.3% of his tries from inside the arc this series, so he’s compensated by attempting at least seven threes in each game. Among the 22 games in which he tried at least seven treys during the regular season, he canned at least three 16 times.
To be fair, Detroit’s defense has made life difficult in the series, despite the score. The Pistons finished with the league’s second-best defensive rating during the regular season (108.9), and they’ve actually been 6.6 points per 100 possessions more efficient so far these playoffs. However, while Detroit has mostly guarded Bane with Defensive Player of the Year finalist Ausar Thompson, Orlando has also done a good job getting him switched onto Duncan Robinson (25th percentile in total contests per 100 possessions during the regular season), and he’s taken advantage of such possessions, making four of his eight threes.
Relative to expectations, Harris might be the Pistons’ best offensive player this series. Their offense has been disastrous, managing just 100.3 points per 100 possessions, but Harris — who’s averaged 5.7 more points per game than he did during the regular season despite an extremely balky three-point jumper — hasn’t been the problem. Cunningham (who’s averaging 6.8 turnovers per game) and Jalen Duren (whose series high is 12 points) have. Harris has done an excellent job getting easy looks, attempting 7.6 shots per game in the paint and 3.3 corner threes. He’s scored at least 17 points in three of the four games, which is more a result of high usage than efficiency.
The Magic also haven’t prioritized stopping Harris as much as they have Detroit’s other offensive weapons. He’s spent almost all of his possessions going against Banchero, who’s graded out as a below-average defender in each of his four professional seasons and finished in just the 28th percentile in total points saved per 100 possessions during the regular season. Banchero hasn’t even done a bad job against him, limiting him to just six-for-19 shooting from the field (one-for-nine from deep), so Harris might be even more effective if he can return to his regular season form. During the teams’ regular season series, he scored at least 18 points in all three games in which he played.
Suggs had three steals in Game 1 and two steals in Game 4, and during the regular season, he had at least two in 33 of his 57 games, including three of his four games against the Pistons. By on-off impact, he’s been one of Orlando’s most important players this season (plus-7.6 points per 100 possessions during the regular season and plus-8.1 so far these playoffs), and during the regular season, the Magic’s steal rate was 1.7 percentage points higher with him on the floor than off. His steals have directly led to six points by Orlando this series, which has mattered given how tight each game has been.
Detroit simply doesn’t have much ball-handling. During the regular season, the Pistons allowed the eighth-most opponent steals per game, and they rank second-to-last among the 16 playoff participants so far. Individually, Cunningham has coughed up at least seven in each of the past three games, and Suggs has been a major part of that. He’s forced four turnovers from Thompson, one each from Robinson and Cunningham, and two each from Harris and Javonte Green, and he could spend more time defending Cunningham tonight with Wagner likely absent.
此内容由惯性聚合(RSS阅读器)自动聚合整理,仅供阅读参考。 原文来自 — 版权归原作者所有。