After winning the first two games of their first-round series, the Nuggets enter Friday’s Game 3 with a chance to put the Timberwolves on the brink of elimination.
But don’t expect Minnesota to go down with a fight.
Star scorer Anthony Edwards came alive in Game 2, scoring a playoff career-high 41 points after a quiet showing in Game 1.
Can he keep it rolling in a must-win spot on Friday, or will Nuggets center Nikola Jokic steal the show?
Here’s how we’re betting the player props market for Friday’s contest, which tips off at 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
(via BetMGM)
After a quiet three-game run following the end of the regular season, Edwards exploded on Wednesday for 41 points, easily his best output in 11 career playoff and play-in games.
He had averaged just 22.7 points in those previous 10 games, including a combined 28 points in two play-in games this year and 18 points in Sunday’s blowout loss to the Nuggets in Game 1.
He also averaged 24.6 points during this year’s regular season, and he’d managed just 20.4 points per game in his previous 12 contests entering Game 2.
All of that is to say: his 41-point outburst on Wednesday should clearly be seen as the exception, not the rule.
Edwards’ scoring pace has fallen short of Friday’s betting total in his postseason career, his current season and this current month, so this prop is clearly inflated by a one-game blip – all before considering the juice on the over.
The last three times that Edwards scored at least 30 points in a game, he followed that up with scoring outputs of 11 points, 23 points, and 26 points.
I’m just not buying another offensive explosion from the inconsistent guard, especially not at these odds.
There’s no doubt that Jokic can fill up the stat sheet with the best of them, as we saw in each of his previous two MVP campaigns and much of this season, too.
That said, it’s hard not to take note of his struggles as of late.
Since missing three games with calf tightness near the end of the regular season, the Nuggets star has averaged a mere 15 points, 10.8 rebounds and 7.3 assists in four games since – a combined average of just 33.2 PRA with just one triple-double in that stretch.
While those numbers would be otherworldly for most, they’re a far cry from what we’re used to from the two-time MVP, and this prop is priced much closer to his season average for PRA (46.1).
That isn’t the Jokic we’ve seen for a while now, as he’s surpassed Friday’s prop total just once in the last three weeks – when he combined for 45 PRA in Game 2.
With this series shifting to Minnesota, I’m skeptical of a sudden resurgence from Jokic, especially with the star center battling a nagging wrist injury that landed him on the injury report ahead of Game 2.
Whether he’s being affected by that or the Timberwolves’ towering frontcourt, this is a tough matchup with an even tougher price.