One of the giants of the Eastern Conference might go down. After coming back from seven points down with less than a minute to play for the second time in three games, the Indiana Pacers have a commanding 2-0 lead on the 64-win Cleveland Cavaliers with the series headed back to Indianapolis for tonight’s Game 3.
The catalyst of Indiana’s run through these playoffs has been Tyrese Haliburton, but Pascal Siakam — who’s averaging 18.3 points and 6.3 boards per game on 54-44-70 shooting splits in the seven playoff games — has been important as well.
On DraftKings Sportsbook, the Pacers are five-point underdogs for Game 3, with the total is set for 229.5. Below, I’ve detailed my favorite prop bets centered around Spicy P.
Best Pascal Siakam Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Pascal Siakam 20+ Points (+115)
The value here is pretty solid for a player who had scored 24 or more points in each of the first three games of the postseason, even if he’s gone below 20 in each of his last four games. He’s the ultimate star role player, filling a variety of different needs that Indiana has asked him to do, and in recent nights, that responsibility hasn’t been scoring. In fact, he’s only posted a usage rate north of 20% four times these playoffs — the first three games of the first round and Game 1 on Sunday, when he shot the ball fairly inefficiently and finished with 17 points. But no player was clearly preferred to Siakam in his low-usage games, so the pendulum of chance could easily swing back towards him.
Plus, he hasn’t exactly been the center of Cleveland’s defensive attention. He’s been guarded by Dean Wade for three more minutes than any other Cavalier, and in that time, he’s scored 11 points and made five of his eight field goal attempts. Even if Defensive Player of the Year Evan Mobley returns tonight, there isn’t a defender on Cleveland’s roster I trust to shut down Siakam if he gets enough opportunity, given how much success he found against him in 17.3 partial possessions of Game 1. The Pacers’ offense is super egalitarian, with Haliburton finding open looks for everyone else, and it hasn’t been Siakam’s turn in a while. That could easily change tonight.
Pascal Siakam 2+ Three-Pointers Made (+195)
This bet is almost a prerequisite to the first one, so if Siakam ends up reaching the 20-point threshold, it’ll be largely because of his three-point shooting. Of the 45 games between the regular season and postseason in which the Cameroonian ended up scoring more than 20 points, he made two or more threes in all but 18 of them. Given that he made two or more three-pointers in 32 of his 78 games during the regular season and four of his seven postseason games, +195 odds represent extremely good value. It’s worth noting that he didn’t attempt a single triple in Game 2, but a return from Mobley — one of the league’s premier rim deterrents — might incentivize him to slash less and shoot more.
Indiana has shot 30-for-64 (46.9%) from beyond the arc so far this series, which is both the result of shooting luck and some scheme questions. The Cavaliers were a decent three-point defense in the regular season and in the first round, but they’ve also allowed a lot of open shots so far this series. Wide-open looks have comprised 32.7% of the Pacers’ shots so far this series, the highest rate of any team, and 25.0% of their attempts have been wide-open threes. All five of Siakam’s three-point attempts in Game 1 came with the nearest defender more than four feet away, and he hit 121 of his 307 (39.4%) open or wide-open triples during the regular season.
