The Lakers were the only team priced as a home underdog in Game 1 of the NBA Playoffs, but pulled the upset over the Rockets on Saturday night. A big reason why was the play of Luke Kennard, who finished with a game-high 27 points — cashing a nice +1220 ticket for those bold enough to bet him to score 25+ at DraftKings Sportsbook.
While Kennard’s scoring was crucial to Los Angeles’ success, he didn’t do much else on the stat sheet in his 38 minutes. Kennard’s props are a bit inflated at the moment, due to a brief stint where he played significant minutes at point guard in meaningless regular season games. Over three outings in early April, the former Duke Blue Devil averaged over nine rebounds and six assists. Those outputs, that did come with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves sidelined, proved to be outliers.
While Kennard is still playing significant minutes with Doncic and Reaves remaining out, his role has shifted back away from playing on the ball. Marcus Smart is playing more of a point guard role, and with the importance of the postseason, LeBron James is being relied upon to do more in all aspects. So while Kennard is still getting minutes and playing well, we’ve seen him average just over two assists and less than two rebounds over his last three games.
Kennard’s combo prop on rebounds + assists is still a bit inflated, sitting at 7.5, although heavily juiced to the under. That said, the juice is worth the squeeze in this situation. Since being traded to the Lakers in early February, Kennard is 27-5 to the UNDER if we set his rebounds + assists prop at 7.5 for each game — which is what it is for Game 2 on Tuesday.
I’ll stay away from the points with Kennard and just fade his activity as a rebounder and creator.
