With nine minutes to play in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s Game 1 win over the Detroit Pistons, the New York Knicks trailed 98-90. Cameron Payne hit a layup to cut the deficit to six, and Tom Thibodeau put Jalen Brunson into the game.
The southpaw hit a floater to cut the deficit to three. He then made another runner and two more layups, and by the time the damage was done, New York led, 111-98. Brunson added to his burgeoning playoff legacy with a 34-point, eight-assist performance, putting the team on his back in a must-win game and demonstrating why he was named a finalist for Clutch Player of the Year.
On DraftKings Sportsbook, the Knicks are 6.5-point favorites and the total is set for 220.5. Below, I’ve detailed my favorite prop bets centered around Morant.
Best Jalen Brunson Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Jalen Brunson 35+ Points (+260)
A Brunson 30-bomb is the third-most popular prop bet at DraftKings Sportsbook for tonight’s game, and my college Zach Thompson is tailing it. The confidence makes sense; after all, this is the same player who averaged 42 points and nine assists per game across a five-game stretch during New York’s 2024 playoff run. He won’t quite replicate the 37.2% usage rate that he averaged across those five games — after all, these Knicks are healthy while that squad was injury-ravaged — but those outbursts weren’t just a product of volume, given his 50.0% accuracy from the field in that stretch.
In order to offer variety on the DK Network site and reflect my confidence in him, I’m going to go even higher. Saturday’s performance could’ve been better; he recorded an effective field goal percentage seven percentage points below his season average. And he fed the hot hand at times during the stretch run, finding Cameron Payne for a triple and Josh Hart for a layup even when he could’ve conceivably scored himself. He was four-for-15 in the first half and eight-for-12 after the break, so as long as he comes out of the gate hotter, a one-point increase shouldn’t be unrealistic. J.B. Bickerstaff guarded him with Ausar Thompson and Dennis Schröder in almost equal sample sizes, and while he struggled against Schröder on Saturday, he had a relatively efficient 13 points and five assists in 13 minutes guarded by the German national team captain during the regular season.
Jalen Brunson U2.5 Rebounds (+130)
Brunson isn’t much of a rebounder, having recorded two or fewer boards in every game since he returned from the sprained ankle that cost him nearly a month of playing time, a stretch that now totals five games. Like other players of his stature, he very rarely grabs contested rebounds, with just 13.9% of his boards facing contests during the regular season, and Detroit was the league’s sixth-best team at boxing out in 2024-25. His average rebound comes 10.6 feet away from the basket, the furthest of any player in New York’s playoff rotation, which comes as a byproduct of rebounding missed threes. But both of these teams rank in the league’s bottom 10 in three-point attempts, which should limit Brunson’s rebounding chances.
With Karl-Anthony Towns battling Jalen Duren inside and Hart and Thompson battling as high-flying hustlers on the wing, there’s no reason for Brunson to put his body on the line fighting for a board. The Pistons allowed the sixth-fewest boards per game this season, thanks in part to Duren’s excellent rebounding, Thompson’s athleticism, and Cade Cunningham’s six-foot-six frame, so it’s not like it’ll be easy for any Knick, much less Brunson. Thibodeau’s strategy is clear in having Brunson stick to shooter Tim Hardaway Jr. on defense: conserve his energy and protect his ankle.
