Throughout the season, there have been widely considered to be three good teams in the Eastern Conference: the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Boston Celtics, and the New York Knicks. But it’s been long past time to recognize that there are four teams that should be significant favorites to win their first-round playoff series.
Since January 1, the Indiana Pacers have gone 28-13 with a plus-5.1 net rating, significantly better than New York’s mark. Yes, it’s worse than the net rating that the Detroit Pistons — the Pacers’ likely first-round opponent — have put up, but Indiana has the recent experience of making the conference finals, and experience matters in the playoffs. Plus, I trust Tyrese Haliburton, who’s averaged 19.6 points and 9.6 assists per game on ridiculous 51-44-88 shooting splits since the turn of the calendar.
The Pacers haven’t quite locked up the East’s fourth seed yet, but tonight’s game against the woeful Charlotte Hornets, who recently shut down LaMelo Ball for the season, shouldn’t trip them up.
On DraftKings Sportsbook, Indiana is a 15.5-point favorite and the total is set for 221.5. Below, I’ve highlighted my favorite prop bets centered around Haliburton.
Best Tyrese Haliburton Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Tyrese Haliburton 20+ Points (+120)
Haliburton’s primary contribution isn’t scoring, even with his elite efficiency. Recently, he recorded a streak of 12 consecutive point-assist double-doubles, the longest such streak by a player this season. Still, it’s not like he can’t score, given that he’s scored 20 or more points in seven of his 16 games since the All-Star break and is averaging 21.3 points per contest across that span. The critical factor is playing time: given the lopsided quality differential between the two teams, it’s easy to worry that the Hornets might not be competitive enough to force Haliburton to stay in the game, especially with Miles Bridges questionable with an illness.
But if Charlotte is able to muster even a modicum of competition, it won’t provide Haliburton with much resistance. Since the All-Star break, the Hornets have paired the league’s worst offense with its fifth-worst defense. For as mediocre of a defender as Ball is, at least he’s six-foot-seven and has the length to stay with the six-foot-five Haliburton. Ball’s replacement in the starting lineup, KJ Simpson, is just six feet tall and has even worse advanced defensive metrics than Ball does. Plus, Nick Smith Jr., who’s likely to get significant minutes as Charlotte’s reserve shooting guard, is also worse than Ball on that end of the floor.
Tyrese Haliburton -0.5 Three-Pointers Made vs. Miles Bridges (-105)
If Haliburton is going to score at least 20 points, he’s going to have to do a lot of his damage from beyond the arc, given that a career-high 55.8% of his field goal attempts have come from three-point range this season. That’ll basically necessitate him to make at least three triples, which he’s done three times in his past five games and 21 of the 25 games in which he’s scored 20 or more points. Thankfully for him, the Hornets will probably make that easy, given that since the All-Star break, they’ve allowed the fifth-most made triples per game on the ninth-best percentage.
Meanwhile, Bridges’ usage rate has been high in recent weeks, but his efficiency hasn’t been. Since the All-Star break, Bridges has posted a 28.9% usage rate and accounted for 30.0% of Charlotte’s made triples, but he’s only connected from deep at a 33.9% clip across that stretch. To shrink the sample size, he’s only made six of his last 36 triples (16.7%), hitting one or fewer three-pointer in four of his last five games. Bridges has only nailed three or more threes in a game 23 times this season, while Haliburton has connected on four or more in 28 separate games. Plus, in the last month and a half, the Pacers are conceding just the second-fewest made threes and the fourth-lowest percentage.
