NBA Multi bet of the Weekend | May 3

Saturday will play host to just a solitary NBA game, with the Rockets vs Warriors series heading back to San Francisco after Houston demolished their opposition to extend it to Game 6 a couple of days ago. The Warriors actually made a good first of a comeback with their second unit, but the damage had been well and truly done in the first half and it proved too little too late. With just the one game on, our NBA multi for the weekend will be a same-game one, with all three bets coming from that matchup. Take a look at them below.

Saturday 3rd of May, 11.05am AEST, Chase Center

Fred Van Vleet has played a huge role in the last couple of games for the Rockets, with the experience of the 2019 champion coming to the fore with the series on the line. Van Vleet averages only 14.1 points per game this season and played to around that number in the first three games of the postseason with 10, 7 and 17 points, but since then he has found a rich vein of shooting form which has seen him put up some big numbers. In his last two games, the savvy veteran has scored 25 and 26 points (the latter in only 33 minutes of game time), going 8-13 from the field in both of those games. In the first he was lights out from three-point land, hitting 8-12 from long range, and while that isn’t a particularly repeatable way to put up numbers, he managed to score an extra point in seven minutes less playing time in Game 5 while relying far less heavily on the three-point shot. In that game he was still effective from long range but only took six of them, hitting four, meaning that 14 other points came from two-point range or the three-point line – a stark contrast to that first big game. Of course, we are not bothered how he gets his points as long as he gets them, but in terms of his likelihood of repeating those sorts of numbers, it’s far more likely if he’s been scoring in more ways than just long-range shooting. Van Vleet is now feeling good from long range, getting to the line and getting to the rim, which makes his points line set by betting sites of just 15.5 points look too low. If Van Vleet goes past that number there is a good chance that he will do so relatively comfortably, so at well over $3 with sites like PlayUp, he looks like great value to get 20+ points to kick off our NBA weekend multi.

Saturday 3rd of May, 11.05am AEST, Chase Center

We hit on Jalen Green going under his points total in the last game, and having done so comfortably there is no reason not to go back to the well in this one. Green has really struggled under the bright lights of this playoff series so far, the sole exception coming in Game 2 when he exploded for 38 points. That aside, his Game 5 effort in which he scored 11 points was his best game. Excluding that 38-point game, Green has averaged just 8.8 points per game in this series – that’s after putting up 21 per game in the regular season – and has generally looked to have wilted under the pressure of the postseason. He has become increasingly less aggressive as his productivity and efficiency has decreased, reducing his scoring even further, and in the last two games has taken just eight shots in each. In Game 5, he actually came out looking like he was set for another performance like in Game 2, scoring an and-1 and hitting a three in the opening minutes, but he only scored five more points thereafter and ended the game having played just 28 minutes after playing only 25 the game prior. Granted some of that was due to the lopsided scoreline, but clearly Ime Udoka has lost a little faith in Green this series – and not surprising given he is on the floor as a scorer and when he’s not doing that efficiently he is not a particularly useful player. The Rockets are a multi-pronged unit with plenty of players capable of causing damage, and while Green is capable of being the most damaging among them on his day, he can be really quite bad on others. In this series, he has been much more of the latter than the former, and while NBA betting sites have adjusted his line a fair bit to 15.5, given he hasn’t got near that number in four of five games this series the under still looks like a good bet.

Saturday 3rd of May, 11.05am AEST, Chase Center

Alperen Sengun has by and large been really good in this playoff series. He’s scored relatively efficiently while often being the Rockets’ bail out guy, rebounded heavily, and shown his impressive passing wares with some great creation for teammates. After averaging 4.9 assists per game in the regular season, the man some have dubbed ‘mini Jokic’ managed just a solitary assist in Game 1, but since then has been putting up some much bigger numbers in that statistical category. In the four games since, the Turkish centre has managed at least four dimes in every game, averaging 6.3 in that time. That included a series-high nine in the latest game, with that coming in just 31 minutes after he wasn’t needed for much of the final quarter. Despite having recorded at least four in four games in a row and five or more in three of those games, betting agencies have set Sengun’s assist line at lower than his season average of 4.9. He is paying better than even money to hit that five number once again, which given his assist totals in recent games looks like a good bet. The fun thing about playoff series is that certain defensive schemes become apparent and can lead to some predictable trends, and in this one of them has been Sengun passing out of some aggressive interior defence, which invariably boosts his assist numbers. Another benefit of this bet is that it ties in with the Van Vleet one – a lot of those assists are going to be passed from the inside to the out, with Van Vleet behind the three-point arc a common target. If FVV hits a few of those, it could go a long way to hitting both those legs of this multi.