I love NBA drama. We’ve already gotten some juicy storylines off the court this year, especially the Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons sagas, but last night finally gave us some fireworks on the court. Nikola Jokic got ejected for laying out Markieff Morris as the Nuggets cruised to an easy win last night. These teams will meet again on November 29th, so we don’t have to wait long to see what happens next. Get your popcorn ready.
Here are my top NBA betting picks for Tuesday’s action.
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Written Picks YTD: 24-16-0 (+13.33u)
Total Picks YTD: 39-32-0 (+19.15u)*
*Follow me @is_sirois for any other plays.
1. John Collins o14.5 Points | +102 at FD Sportsbook
2. John Collins o1.5 Made Threes | +200 (.25u) at FD Sportsbook
The Utah Jazz are a very good team. They rank seventh in defensive efficiency and give up the seventh-fewest points per game (102.6). However, they do have a weakness: opposing power forwards. The Jazz give up the third-most points per game to fours (24.3), but they rank top-10 in points per game allowed to every other position.
Enter John Collins. The Hawks are on a back-to-back, but Steph Curry and the Warriors pretty much controlled all of yesterday’s game, so Collins only got 30 minutes of work. As a result, he should be relatively fresh here. Collins has also played well against the Jazz over the last two years. He averaged 15 points per game against them last year with half a made three per game. He has already faced the Jazz once this year, and he scored 13 points and made a trio of threes against them.
The season-long averages also point to some value here. Collins is averaging 16.3 points per game, a decent margin above this total. He is also averaging 1.3 made threes per game, but he has hit 2.7 per game over his last three outings, including his first matchup against the Jazz. His perimeter shooting will regress back to the mean eventually, but we’re getting enough value at this juice to make it worth a quarter-unit play.
3. Jordan Clarkson o2.5 Made Threes | +106 at FD Sportsbook
The Hawks have gotten off to a tepid start this year. They currently sit at 4-7 and are on a four-game losing streak. That includes an 18-point loss to the Utah Jazz earlier this month — a game that Donovan Mitchell had to miss. Jordan Clarkson responded by scoring 30 points and making four shots from beyond the arc.
Although the Jazz will have Mitchell this time around, I still have faith in Clarkson’s abilities off the bench. However, it’s true that he is shooting much worse this season. He shot 34.7% from three-point land last season but is currently shooting just 21.7% from there this year. Fortunately, Clarkson takes 9.2 three-point shots per game, so he still averages at two made threes every night.
The Hawks’ defensive vulnerabilities make this a play to target. They surrender the most points per game to shooting guards (28.1) along with the sixth-most made threes (3.87). Although Mitchell starts at the two for Utah, he moves over to the one spot when sharing the floor with Clarkson. The reigning Sixth Man of the Year has to find his shot eventually, and I expect a strong performance out of him tonight.
4. SGP: Collins o14.5 PTS + Clarkson o2.5 3PT + UTA +6.5 | +334 (.33u) at FD Sportsbook
Let’s parlay the two above plus-money props. That gives us an SGP with odds of +288, so we’ll add in a teased-down spread for a bit of extra value. The Jazz obliterated the Hawks without Donovan Mitchell last time, so I expect them to get a win here. They also have a rest advantage, too. That said, we don’t want our play to bust if they somehow manage to lose this game, so we’ll get a bit of a cushion. I recommend that you wager enough to profit a unit with this one.
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Isaiah Sirois is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Isaiah, check out his archive and follow him @is_sirois.