It’s not an exaggeration to say that Dallas Mavericks fans have been waiting for good news for almost three months now. On Christmas Day, with the Mavericks in fourth in the Western Conference, Luka Dončić suffered a calf strain, and since then, Dallas’ road has been tumultuous, to say the least. Dereck Lively II suffered an injury. Dončić was dealt to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis. Then, in his first game with the team, Davis suffered an adductor strain, Daniel Gafford sprained his knee two days later, and Kyrie Irving blew out his ACL while trying to carry the load.
Thankfully for Mavericks fans, Davis is expected to make his second appearance for the team tonight against the Brooklyn Nets at the Barclays Center at 7:30 p.m. ET. In his debut, he scored 26 points and grabbed 16 rebounds before suffering his injury.
On DraftKings Sportsbook, Dallas is a 3.5-point favorite and the total is set for 218.5. Below, I’ve highlighted my prop bets centered around The Brow.
Best Anthony Davis Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Anthony Davis 4+ First-Quarter Rebounds (+120)
Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd hasn’t yet revealed his plans for Davis’ usage tonight, but it’s fair to assume both that he’ll start and that he’ll be on somewhat of a minutes restriction, perhaps in the range of 20 to 24 minutes per game. Given the uncertainty about Davis’ conditioning, I’m going to avoid his whole-game props and instead focus on his first-quarter output. With the Lakers, Davis played nearly the entire first quarter of every game and averaged 3.7 boards in the frame, the fourth-most in the league, and in his Dallas debut, he had eight boards in the opening frame against one of the league’s best rebounding teams.
It’s possible that Kidd will want to save some of his minutes for crunch time, but like Dončić in his debut with Los Angeles and Kawhi Leonard in his return to the LA Clippers, it’s also possible that Davis will play close to a normal load in the first quarter and leave the game for good in the third quarter, regardless of its score. Either way, Brooklyn has been killed on the boards recently, conceding the seventh-most rebounds in the league over its last 10 games. Davis is 38 pounds heavier than Nets center Nic Claxton, which should help him control the glass early on.
Anthony Davis 2 Point – DAL Mavericks First Team Field Goal Scorer Exact (+235)
Looking at the Mavericks’ projected starting lineup tonight, who else would score the first field goal? It’s not like Spencer Dinwiddie, P.J. Washington, Naji Marshall, and Klay Thompson are terrible players — they’re certainly better than the likes of Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Kylor Kelley, and others who have started for Dallas before, but I’d trust even a severely hobbled Davis over any of them, and given that he participated in five-on-five practices with the Mavericks’ G-League affiliate last week, I doubt he’s severely hobbled. Given its position in the standings, Dallas wouldn’t bring him back if he wasn’t prepared to dominate, even in limited minutes.
To be fair, it wasn’t Davis who scored the Mavericks’ points in his debut, as he instead lobbed an assist to Gafford, who won’t be playing tonight. But overall, he’s by far Dallas’ best offensive option right now, and he ranks sixth in the league in first-quarter usage rate among 259 players who have appeared in at least 40 games, outpacing even LeBron James during his 42 games with Los Angeles. I can imagine a scenario in which his Mavericks teammates are eager to produce a welcome-back moment and feed him the ball on the first possession. If he does attempt Dallas’ first shot, it’s likely to be a two, given that his three-point attempt rate is just 12.4%, and it’s also likely to go in, with his 55.9% two-point shooting accuracy.
