For the Cleveland Cavaliers, New York Knicks, and Denver Nuggets, it’s one down, three to go. After each team won comfortably in the first game of its series on Saturday, all-important Game 2’s await. Teams that go on to take a 2-0 lead go on to win the series more than 90% of the time.
But the Toronto Raptors, Atlanta Hawks, and Minnesota Timberwolves have the opportunity to flip the script. Road teams that take one of the first two games of the series “steal” home court advantage, and their odds of winning the series improve dramatically. The tenor of each series could be dramatically feel dramatically different at this time tomorrow.
The high-stakes action is exciting enough on its own, but for those interested in getting in on it, there are plenty of prop bets available at DraftKings Sportsbook. I’ve gone through and picked my three favorites, with one from each game.
Top NBA prop bet picks
Donovan Mitchell 30+ Points (+114)
Mitchell’s team has made the postseason in each of his nine seasons but has never made it out of the second round, a streak of futility that the Cavaliers are desperately hoping to end this season. But for his lack of team success, Mitchell has been a brilliant playoff performer, averaging 28.4 points per game in the postseason (the sixth-highest in NBA history). Of his 64 career playoff games, he’s reached the 30-point threshold in half of them, including Game 1 on Saturday. He also had 30 or more points in six of his nine playoff games in 2024-25.
To be fair, the Raptors have a good defense, as during the regular season, they finished with the fifth-best defensive rating. However, the playoffs are a different beast, and they had the second-worst defensive performance of any team in its 2025-26 postseason debut. While some of that was the result of luck, they also allowed Cleveland to get inside at will, conceding 10 close-range shot attempts to Mitchell alone. Toronto primarily guarded Mitchell with Jamal Shead, who ranked in just the 22nd percentile in total contests per 100 possessions during the regular season, as well as the 17th percentile in rim points saved per 100 possessions.
Karl-Anthony Towns O32.5 Points + Rebounds (-124)
Towns is entering a crucial postseason, given the Knicks’ expensive salary table, Mitchell Robinson’s impending free agency, and the team’s expectations of a Finals run. He answered the pressure with a stellar Game 1 performance, finishing with 25 points and eight rebounds and getting to the free throw line at will, making all 10 of his shots from the charity stripe. All in all, he recorded at least 33 P/R 33 times during the regular season and in 13 of his 19 playoff games with New York overall. He finished second in the NBA in rebounds per game for the second consecutive season.
The Hawks just don’t have the size to handle his seven-foot, 248-pound frame. While Atlanta went 19-5 with the league’s third-best defensive rating after elevating CJ McCollum to the starting lineup on February 22, it still allowed the eighth-most field goal attempts within five feet, a range in which Towns shot 65.7% after the All-Star break after a rough start to the season. Towns dominated six-foot-10 Onyeka Okongwu during the regular season, shooting 11-for-14 from the field when guarded by him and topping 33 P/R in both of the teams’ regular-season matchups in which he played. He also recorded 14 points in just 27.3 partial possessions against Okongwu in Game 1.
Donte DiVincenzo 3+ Three-Pointers Made (+109)
With the Timberwolves starting two relative non-shooters in Julius Randle (31.5% from beyond the arc this season) and Rudy Gobert (zero-for-22 in his career), the onus falls on DiVincenzo to keep the Nuggets from slacking into drop coverage. He did an excellent job of that in Game 1, nailing four of his seven triples, and he had at least three made threes in four of his last five regular season games in which he played his regular minutes. Though he wasn’t great in the 2024-25 postseason, making only 31.8% of his triples, he made 42.5% of his threes across 13 games in 2023-24 with the New York Knicks.
The Nuggets represent a solid matchup overall; they had the worst defensive rating of the 16 playoff teams, giving up 116.0 points per 100 possessions. They also allowed an above-average number of wide-open three-pointers per game during the regular season, including the third-most after Aaron Gordon returned from a hamstring strain on March 6. Denver can’t expect to get away with that against DiVincenzo, who averaged a team-high 4.1 uncontested triple attempts per game during the regular season and connected at a 39.9% clip. He attempted at least six threes in each of his four games against the Nuggets, making at least three twice.
