Tonight, DraftKings Sportsbook is offering an amazing profit boost promotion. If you create a same game parlay (SGP) for Game 1 between the Pacers and the Knicks, you’ll then be issued a single-use Profit Boost Token. The only catch? The parlay has to be at least three legs with odds of at least +300 or longer. Seems simple enough, right? So simple I think I’ll whip one up right now.
Here’s my favorite same game parlay for the opening tilt of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Pacers vs. Knicks Same-Game Parlay
- Jalen Brunson 29+ Points
- Karl-Anthony Towns 10+ Rebounds
- Under 222.5
SGP Odds: +385
The Pacers are a fascinating playoff team. Unlike so many other squads that shorten their rotation and maximize their stars’ usage in the postseason, Indiana chooses to embrace its depth. Throughout the first two rounds, the Pacers have leaned on their second unit, with the likes of Bennedict Mathurin, Obi Toppin, T.J. McConnell and Thomas Bryant getting consistent run.
This socialist philosophy doesn’t change when Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam are on the court, either, as both former All-Stars have seen their usage rate in these playoffs hover around the modest level of 23%. It’s a selfless style of basketball that has obviously led to success. Heck, Indiana leads all teams in postseason assist to turnover ratio (2.32). However, it’s also a style of play that does not translate well to hitting the over on props.
Conversely, the Knicks are all about volume for their starters — a trend I would only expect Tom Thibodeau to reinforce the deeper New York gets in the playoffs. That’s why I’ll be focusing two legs of this parlay on Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. In the 12 postseason games the Knicks have played, Brunson is averaging 39.0 minutes with a team-high 31.9% usage rate. That’s correlated to 28.8 points per contest on a staggering 22.3 field goal attempts each and every night. It looks small next to Brunson’s average of a league-high 26.2 field goal attempts per game in last year’s playoffs, but trust me, it remains a massive figure.
As for Towns, while his offensive ceiling hasn’t been apparent against the Pistons or the Celtics, his rebounding has been consistent. The big man has grabbed double-digit boards in seven of his last eight starts. With the Pacers surrendering the third-most opponent rebounds per contest in the postseason (44.7), look for Towns to continue to dominate the glass.
Lastly, let’s talk total. Indiana regularly participated in high-scoring tilts against Cleveland in the second round, yet New York is a different animal, as in the Knicks have scored nearly 12 points per 100 possessions fewer than the Cavaliers during the playoffs. New York also plays at a glacial pace. We saw this in the regular season when the Knicks ranked 26th in possessions per 48 minutes (97.6) and things have only become slower in the postseason (95.3). With this contest at Madison Square Garden, expect New York to dictate the style and flow. Seven of the Knicks’ last 11 games have gone under this number.
