Line Prophet LLC

Rebounding is tough
We are legitimately relying on the ball bouncing in the general direction of the player we are betting on. Last night for example, Nikola Jokic could have had 2-4 more rebounds just off missed free throws bouncing his direction off the miss; who would have thought that arguably the best rebounder in the league would not rebound 3 straight free throw misses. Fortunately for Nikola, and everyone who trailed our rebounding bet, he absolutely crushed his 13.5 line regardless with 17 rebounds.

Typically speaking, we are betting on guys with the thought that they aren’t just going to get to their rebounding number by a hook; we are hoping they will blow through it. We shouldn’t be discouraged by a big line number like a 13.5 or 14.5. At the end of the day, guys like Jokic and Gobert average ~14 for a reason; for every game they only get to 9, 10, or 11, they are getting to 17, 18, 19 or 20. The big numbers usually do not happen by accident; There are reasons why they got there, and these factors are often times exploitable. Lets take a dive into what factors we evaluated going into this bet:

Last 5 games: Jokic was averaging 16.2 rebounds the past 5 games coming in. He doesn’t have a ton of rebounding competition on his own team; Gordon will go for the occasional double double, but outside of him, he is the bellcow in this category for the Nuggets, making his rebounding a sustainable trend.

Environment
Denver was a fairly well rested team, not playing on a back to back and wasn’t playing a 3rd in 4 nights. There is no reason Jokic wasn’t going to bring energy or have the stamina from a scheduling reason.

The Backstory
We are getting down to the end of the season, and 2 factors are in play here. 1, the Nuggets are in the middle of a playoff push, so the whole team you would figure is going to bring it. 2, and more importantly for understanding Jokic’s personal motivation, Jokic is very much in the thick of the MVP race. Obviously, this is added motivation to rack up the numbers; the Nuggets were down 20 last night at halftime, and never got it within 8, but Jokic still had 12(!!) second half rebounds, perfect example right there.

The Matchup
Without the matchup, the factors above almost do not matter. When we look at big man matchups, most of the time, we hone in on big men playing against centers who do not leave the paint. We do not want our big man having to guard out on the perimeter and miss rebounding chances because he is worried about giving up a corner 3. Guys like Looney, Poeltl, Zubac, Powell, and whatever guys OKC, Portland, or Indiana are running out there are great rebounding matchups because they are not high end perimeter offensive threats, and are not huge scoring threats in general.

Hope this helps add a little clarity into what goes through our heads when making a specific type of prop bet. Be on the lookout for more big man bets soon!

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