The NBA postseason officially gets underway on Saturday.
There are four games on the slate, but only three look clear to me on the betting board.
The Utah Jazz should beat the Dallas Mavericks and the absence of Luka Doncic should open up more chances for Utah's best scorers.
Memphis should face some frustration against Minnesota, mostly due to Patrick Beverley's presence on the court. Ja Morant does not need to be the Grizzlies' top scorer as long as he is distributing at a high level.
Philadelphia needs James Harden to pick up his scoring output, and that could come from three-point range in Game 1 against Toronto.
The Denver-Golden State game confuses me the most from a prop perspective because Steph Curry could return and there are a handful of high prices for the star players.
NBA Playoff Props
Postseason Record: 3-5
Bojan Bogdanovic Over 17.5 Points (-115)
I don't trust anything from the Dallas side in Saturday's opening game.
Luka Doncic is out and the prices are a bit inflated for Spencer Dinwiddie and Jalen Brunson.
Utah has the more set rotation and a group of players that know how to operate alongside each other in the postseason.
Bojan Bogdanovic opened the postseason last year with a 29-point performance against the Memphis Grizzlies. He had 18 points in the second series opener against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Bogdanovic typically gets off to a strong start in the postseason and he had success against Dallas in the regular season.
The Utah forward had 18 or more points in each of his three clashes with Dallas.
The only other player I'd roll with in Jazz-Mavericks is Jordan Clarkson because his prices are lower than they typically are. Bogdanovic will get more minutes and ample opportunities to knock down shots around Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley.
Ja Morant Over 7.5 Assists (+100)
Ja Morant could be in for 48 minutes of hell out of Patrick Beverley.
Morant may be forced into a distributor role early on in Game 1 against Minnesota in order for Memphis to knock down some shots and take some defensive attention away from the star point guard.
Morant produced nine assists in his lone regular-season game back from injury on Saturday versus New Orleans.
The Grizzlies point guard had nine assists in his last home contest with the Wolves on January 13. He had eight or more handouts in two of the four regular-season clashes between the two teams.
Minnesota gave up the most assists per game of any of the 16 postseason participants and that could hurt it on Saturday if Morant is able to pick out Dillon Brooks, Desmond Bane and others.
James Harden Over 2.5 Threes (+130)
James Harden attempted at least five three-point shots in each of his last eight playoff appearances.
Harden knocked down three or more triples in 62 of his 137 playoff games. That is a 45 percent hit rate.
Harden needs to put more emphasis on scoring if the Sixers want to defeat the Raptors in a seven-game series.
We all know Harden can put up a high assist total, but he needs more points to go along with that in order for the Sixers to feel comfortable against an opponent that can hit them from multiple angles.
Sixers-Raptors Same Game Parlay
Joel Embiid 30+ points
James Harden 10+ assists
Tobias Harris 15+ points
This is as simple as it gets for the Sixers-Raptors game.
Joel Embiid averaged 30.6 points per game, James Harden averaged 10.3 assists per game and Tobias Harris averaged 17.2 points per game.
The Sixers need Harris to be the third scorer to combat whatever Toronto throws at them. Harris holds lower odds than Tyrese Maxey on the points prop, so that is why I'm going with him to score 15 points.