Tomorrow night, all eyes will once again turn to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for the final of the Emirates NBA Cup, when the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs face off for the second-loftiest prize in all of basketball.
Tonight, though, 10 teams will take the court in an appetizer slate of sorts as teams who didn’t make the NBA Cup knockout stages will face off against each other in make-up games. It’ll begin with a 7 p.m. ET clash between the Detroit Pistons and the Boston Celtics and end at Intuit Dome at 10:30 p.m. ET, when the LA Clippers host the Memphis Grizzlies.
With one-third of the league in action, there’s no shortage of of prop bets available at DraftKings Sportsbook. Here are my three favorites from tonight’s exciting hoops action:
Top NBA prop bet picks
Cade Cunningham H2H Points vs. Jaylen Brown Moneyline (+114)
With all due respect to Jalen Brunson and Donovan Mitchell, these could be the two best healthy players in the Eastern Conference, and they play for two of the three best teams, so it seemed only right to include a prop bet centered around both of them. Brown has stepped up in his first season as the true No. 1 option, averaging nearly 30 points per game and scoring 30 or more in six of his last seven games, and Cunningham is the driving force behind the East-leading Pistons, though his 26.9 points per game have come far less efficiently than Brown’s. He’s only averaged 20.4 points per game so far in December, but he averaged 31.6 points per game in November.
The difference is defense: while Detroit has had the third-best net rating so far this season, Boston merely ranks 18th in the same category. Brown has had a hard time getting anything going against Tobias Harris in the teams’ two previous matchups, scoring just 17 points on six-for-20 shooting in the 67.8 partial possessions that the two have been matched up, and while Cunningham struggled in his 28.4 partial possessions against Jordan Walsh, he also scored 20 points on seven-for-14 shooting against Derrick White in 28 possessions. The teams have split the season series so far, with Brown outscoring Cunningham once and Cunningham outscoring Brown once.
Immanuel Quickley 3+ Three-Pointers Made (-129)
I picked Quickley to make three or more triples in the NBA Cup quarterfinal against the Knicks last Tuesday, but he was ultimately ruled out shortly before tipoff with an illness. With a full week of recovery since his most recent game, he’s now fully healthy and should be able to play his usual minutes. When he does, shots tend to go in: he’s canned three or more triples in 13 of his 25 games, including 12 of his last 17. If anything, his three-point shooting should improve: he shot 39.5% from beyond the arc in 2023-24 and is only at 38.2% so far in 2025-26.
Defensively, the Miami Heat have (as per usual) been a top-five unit, but there’s been plenty of good fortune involved. This season, the Heat have conceded by far the most threes with the nearest defender between four and six feet away and gotten lucky that opponents have only hit such shots at a 30.6% clip (the fourth-lowest in the league). They’ve also conceded sixth-most catch-and-shoot looks and limited opponents to the sixth-worst percentage. Miami always hustles well — it ranks second in contested threes per game — but it might not be enough against Quickley, who’s made 47.2% of his open threes and 38.9% of his catch-and-shoot threes.
Alperen Şengün 40+ Points + Rebounds + Assists (+166)
The battle between Alperen Şengün and Nikola Jokić is always an interesting one, given the two players’ stylistic similarities as arguably the league’s two best high-post playmaking hubs. The last time the two teams played, Şengün had a quiet night, finishing with just 14 points, five rebounds, and six assists in a three-point defeat, but since then, he’s bounced back with 23.7-8.0-6.3 averages (38.0 P/R/A), topping 40 P/R/A in each of his last three games. Since his Houston Rockets have so many offensive stars, he’s still prone to the occasional low-usage outing, but he’s as consistent as anyone on the Rockets. Getting +166 odds on a team’s offensive engine to reach 40 P/R/A is good value.
The Denver Nuggets desperately need Aaron Gordon back to shore up their defense. In the last 11 games — a span in which Gordon played only three minutes before injuring his hamstring — Denver has had the league’s fourth-worst defensive rating, allowing the ninth-most points and the 11th-most assists per game. The Nuggets have still been stingy on the boards — having Jokić, a strong rebounder who basically doesn’t miss from two-point range, helps in that regard — but of the 17 players who have had at least 15 rebound chances per game (minimum 20 games played), Şengün ranks seventh in rebound chance percentage, so he’s capable of holding his own on the glass against even Jokić.
