The series doesn’t truly start until the road team wins a game — or, in the case of the New York Knicks-Indiana Pacers series, until the home team wins a game — and thanks to the Minnesota Timberwolves’ 143-101 thrashing of the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals, that series hasn’t truly started yet.
If the Timberwolves want to truly make it a series, though, they’ll need to win tonight, which will require another excellent performance from Anthony Edwards, whose 30-point, nine-rebound, six-assist masterpiece in Game 3 was essential. Game 4 will tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET from Target Center in Minneapolis.
Minnesota is a three-point underdog at DraftKings Sportsbook, with the point total set for 219. Below, I’ve detailed my favorite prop bets centered around Edwards.
Best Anthony Edwards Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Anthony Edwards Most Points (+175)
Edwards was ruthlessly efficient in Game 3, making 12 of his 17 field goal attempts and five of his eight threes, finding plenty of ways to be effective even against All-Defense First Teamer Luguentz Dort and playing solid defense against Jalen Williams and even, to a lesser extent, MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Gilgeous-Alexander bested Edwards’ scoring total in each of the first two games, but went just four-for-13 from the field — by game score, by far the worst performance of his season — in Game 3, slowed down by Jaden McDaniels and by his cousin, Nickeil Alexander-Walker. McDaniels and Alexander-Walker were only whistled for a combined two fouls, keeping Gilgeous-Alexander away from the free throw line. Given that the Timberwolves where whistled for, on average, one fewer foul per game at home than on the road, that could be a factor again tonight.
Of course, Gilgeous-Alexander is almost certainly going to score more than 14 points tonight; prior to Game 3, he hadn’t scored fewer than that many since March 24, 2024. Part of his low output was a matter of shooting variance — he went zero-for-six with the nearest defender between four and six feet away after shooting 47.9% on such shots during the regular season — and partly a byproduct of the fact that he exited for good with four minutes, 25 seconds left in the third quarter. However, Edwards’ usage rate has been nearly as high as Gilgeous-Alexander’s this series and his shot diet has been healthier than Gilgeous-Alexander’s — a greater proportion of his shots have been open or wide-open, and he’s taken more layups and fewer midrange jumpers — so his long-term scoring ceiling should be higher.
Anthony Edwards 3+ First-Quarter Rebounds (-125)
One of the major X-factors so far this series has been whether or not Oklahoma City could hang with Minnesota on the glass, given that the Thunder allowed the league’s 11th-most rebounds during the regular season. In the first two games, the Thunder did, but in Game 3, the Timberwolves snagged 50 boards to Oklahoma City’s 31, including nine from Edwards. All in all, the All-NBA Second Teamer has snagged nine boards in each of the first three games of the series and is averaging 8.2 rebounds per game so far these playoffs, a huge uptick from the 5.7 per game he averaged in the regular season.
His rebounding prowess is probably sustainable — not only does he lead the team with 13.3 rebound chances per game so far this series, a solid 37.0% of his boards have been contested, indicating that it’s more a matter of positioning than luck. 24 of his 27 boards so far have been defensive, which makes sense given that Oklahoma City boxed out on the lowest percentage of offensive rebound opportunities during the regular season and among the lowest so far these playoffs. It’s also a function of Chris Finch’s rotations: Edwards has played the entire first quarter of each game so far these playoffs, the only conference finals participant to do so. He has recorded three or more first-quarter boards in seven of his 13 games, including each of the first three so far in the conference finals.
