NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | May 2

The Rockets and Warriors are heading to Game 6 while the Lakers have officially been eliminated by the Timberwolves, and on Friday two more teams will look to advance through to the Conference Semi-Finals. In the first, the Pistons host the Knicks facing a 3-2 deficit, while after that the Clippers will also host their elimination game against the Nuggets. Our three best bets of the day kick off with a game bet on the first matchup of the day, before we head to Los Angeles with a couple of player props to round things out. Take a look at our bets below.

Either side to win by less than 7 points @ $2.35 with PlayUp

This has been a very difficult series to pick, but one thing has remained constant throughout – it has been close. The Knicks won the first game by 11 points, and that was as big a gap as we3’ve had between the two teams in the series, and by some margin. The Pistons won Game 2 on the road by 6 points, before the Knicks bounced back with their own 2-point road win in the next. They made it two tight away wins in a row with a 1-point thriller to take a 3-1 series lead, before the Pistons managed to prevent their opposition from winning the series at home with a 3-point win. The cumulative win totals over the last four games is just 12 points and in the last three games it’s just 6, which suggests that we should be in for a really close one once again. The Pistons are very slightly fancied on their home court by the betting sites to take this to a Game 7, but not by much at all, with both teams paying under $2 with some bookies. That’s for good reason given how tight things have been in the series so far, so rather than try to pick a winner we are simply going to bank on this one to be close once again. This is a bit of a funny bet as the game can very easily be close and still be won by more than 6 points, but we do get 12 points to play with here and given the last four games have all been decided within this margin, this looks like a decent bet at better than even money.

Jamal Murray to score 30+ points @ $6.50 with Unibet

Playoff Jamal appears to have officially been activated. Plenty of times in the past, we have seen the Canadian guard take his game to another level in the playoffs, not least in the bubble back in 2021, while he also had plenty of brilliant games during the Nuggets 2023 run to the championship. In the first four games of the Nuggets’ fantastic series against the Clippers he didn’t quite reach those lofty heights, scoring 21, 23, 23 and 13 points (for reference, his season average is 21), but he exploded in Game 5 with 43 points on 17-26 shooting from the field and 8-14 from three-point range to lead his team to a 3-2 lead. When hot, Murray is one of the best shooters in the game and there is little that opposing defences can do to stop him, but he doesn’t consistently play with the same level of confidence or seemingly enthusiasm. Come the postseason, however, he has typically been able to find that extra gear. That is exactly what he did in Game 5 and having done that, he will be entering this game with his tail high in the air. NBA betting sites have set his line at around his season average, which is understandable given that he has only had the solitary good game, but while I don’t necessarily like the over given Murray does have a penchant for quiet games, the long odds on offer for him to have another big game are really juicy. If Murray gets going and goes past his over/under line, there is every chance that he goes all the way to 30 points and potentially beyond, given how much of a confidence player he is. With over $6 on offer for him to get to 30 points on the back of a 43-point effort last outing, this one is hard to ignore.

James Harden under 20.5 points @ $1.88 with QuestBet

In stark contrast to Jamal Murray, James Harden has made a habit of pulling a disappearing act in the postseason throughout the course of his career. That isn’t to say that he’s never played well in the playoffs – he has put together some fantastic individual games throughout what has been an illustrious career – but more often than not he has wilted under the bright lights, at times dramatically, and that appears to be happening in this series too. After averaging 22.8 points per game in the regular season, Harden has failed to score more than 20 points since Game 1 of this series, and has taken progressively less shots in every single game. After exploding for 32 on 11-22 shooting in Game 1, he has taken 17, 14, 11 and finally just 9 shots in the four games since, averaging just 16 points in that time. In his past two games he has scored just 15 points and then 11 in the most recent outing, and in that Game 5 loss he looked particularly bad. Not only has he been inefficient, but he has appeared reluctant to do all that much on offence at all. The Clippers would certainly like him to play a hell of a lot better and may need him to, but they do have better options in Kawhi Leonard while even Ivica Zubac has been a superior offensive weapon, at least from a scoring perspective, of late. Betting agencies have reduced Harden’s line from his regular season average by a couple of points, but the 20.5 it’s set at is still higher than what he has scored in any of the last four games, which means the under looks like a good bet here.