New Orleans Pelicans vs. Los Angeles Lakers NBA Player Props & Picks (12/7/23)

So far, so good for the In-Season Tournament, which has brought in a ton of viewership for these hyper-competitive, playoff-like games. Get New Orleans Pelicans vs. Los Angeles Lakers player prop odds & picks below.

New Orleans Pelicans vs. Los Angeles Lakers Player Prop Picks

Our New Orleans Pelicans vs. Los Angeles Lakers player prop picks feature Anthony Davis and LeBron James.

Anthony Davis Over 12.5 Rebounds (-135)

It feels gross to drink the juice on any Anthony Davis player prop, but especially when the prop is rebounds and he has to get 13 of them to hit. Still, there is enough of a positive trend with his rebounding recently, and his play over the past few games against the New Orleans Pelicans, to feel good about hammering his Over in this spot.

Davis has pulled down 13 or more rebounds in seven of his past eight games this season; he has played the majority of his minutes at center, giving him more reason to be in and around the paint, particularly on the defensive end of the floor. Even on the offensive end, AD has not been hesitant to get physical down low, putting himself in an excellent position for offensive rebounds.

Further, in his past four games versus the Pelicans, AD has hit this prop three times; in the one game that he fell short, he only logged 30 minutes, which will most certainly not be the case in this game unless he gets into significant foul trouble. However, he has done a good job of avoiding that for the most part this season and the refs have been more lenient with foul calls throughout the In-Season Tournament.

As far as minutes, Davis has hit the Over on this line in six consecutive games when he has played 36 or more minutes.

Lastly, the Pelicans allow the ninth-most rebounds per game to opposing centers and the tenth-most to power forwards; they only rank 18th in the NBA in total rebounding rate (percentage) this season.

There is a lot to like about this prop, even with a bit of juice at this 12.5 line. And Davis should be plenty motivated and play a ton of minutes for this one, as the Lakers have verbalized how much they want to win this IST.

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LeBron James Over 2.5 Threes (+114)

There are only a few players in the NBA that can match LeBron James’ strength and physicality, and it just so happens that he will be going against one of those players tonight in Zion Williamson. Zion is 6-foot-7 and weighs roughly 285 pounds, which is 30-40 more pounds than LeBron. Not to mention, he is an exceptionally gifted vertical athlete and LeBron doesn’t quite have the quickness that he used to have to blow by him. Odds are, LeBron is not going to want to challenge Zion at or around the rim much, so don’t be surprised to see him settle for three-pointers in this spot.

Luckily for the Lakers, and for us, LeBron has shot the ball extremely well from deep this season thus far, shooting 38.7% from three-point land, which is close to the percentage that he shot in his last two seasons with the Miami Heat. His volume has been sporadic depending on the game and situation, but he has had several games (three games over his past ten) recently in which he has finished with nine 3PAs, which is a terrific number for this prop. And based on this matchup, we expect that to be the case here.

Further, it should come as no surprise when LeBron plays 40 or more minutes in this game, as this semi-finals game has pretty big stakes. Based on the fact that LeBron will likely rather take more perimeter shots than challenge Zion at the rim (and Zion would rather sag off James a bit and force him to shoot), the recent three-point volume we have seen in certain matchups that mirror this one, and his expected minutes played in this one, we love this prop at plus-money.

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