Game 2 of the NBA Finals will air at 7 PM CST on ABC, and there’s some interesting prop bets to dissect on the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors blew Cleveland out in overtime in Game 1, as Kyrie Irving went down for the remainder of the year. The Warriors won by eight in the additional time.
It casts a black cloud on this series, and this could be the game that the Warriors really get cooking after dealing with early game jitters (and rust) early on Thursday night.
Stephen Curry 27.5 Total Points
OVER. In accord with what the three-point betting will be it’ll become easy to see why the over is chosen here. The Cavaliers were able to prevent Curry from getting tons of threes off in Game 1; he shot just six. Golden State will do everything in its power to set better screens and get Curry going against a much less formidable defender in Matthew Dellavedova.
Stephen Curry 4.5 Total Rebounds
Staying away from this one. Curry had just four boards in game 1, but in Game 5 of the Houston series he had eight. That’s just too much inconsistency to meddle with.
Stephen Curry 7 Assists
Staying away from this. Curry has averaged seven assists over the past two games, and he’ll likely make this bet a push. It’s the rational odds here that deter play.
Stephen Curry 1.5 Made Threes (-1200 O; +650 U)
OVER. See below.
Stephen Curry 4.5 Made Threes (+105 O; -135 U)
OVER. Curry came back down to earth a little bit with just two triples in Game 1, but he’d shot just six in that contest after having shot a total of 44 in the previous four games. In other words, if Curry attempts 11 again as he did on average in the last four games of the Houston Rockets series, then his 44.3 percent clip puts him right on the edge. The difference is that the more shots Steph gets up, the better he seems to shoot. In game 3 against Houston, he hit 7-of-9 from three-point land.
Klay Thompson 20.5 Total Points
Staying away from this one. Thompson has scored 24, 20 and 21 in the past three games, but he’s only shot above 50 percent from the floor once in the past five games. That keeps this bettor wary of the chance that he goes ice cold and is nowhere close to this notch.
Klay Thompson 6.5 Total Rebounds + Assists
OVER. In game 1 Thompson and seven, and he has had a total of 13 rebounds and 12 assists in the past four games. That works out to averages of 3.3 rebounds and 3.0 assists, which puts him on the precipice. What makes the difference is that the Warriors come out less jittery and Thompson gets into his passing game with Curry, to build the assists.
Draymond Green 13.5 Total Points
UNDER. Dray has averaged just 10.5 points per game over the past two games, and has been at 12 or less in three of his past five games. He’s going to impact this game but it won’t be by putting up huge scoring numbers necessarily. Thompson has adequate length and ruggedness to body up with Green, and given Maurice Speights stellar performance in Game 1, Green will have his moments of falling out of the plays.
Draymond Green 10 Total Rebounds
OVER. Draymond Green averaged 13.3 rebounds per game over the final three games of the Houston series, but simply got off to a bad start with just six boards in Game 1. A refocused Green will get at the boards to record 11-plus in this game, taking ever more initiative after allowing Tristan Thompson to dominate the glass in the opening game.
