NBA Player Props for Thursday, 12/25: Best Bets & Predictions Today
What kind of performances can we expect from Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Davis, and LeBron James? Follow along as our NBA betting analyst, Nick Galaida, breaks down three of his favorite NBA prop bets for Thursday, December 25th. Get all of Nick’s picks, including more NBA plays, by subscribing to the RotoGrinders Props & Pick’em package.
The NBA’s annual 5-game Christmas Day slate begins at 12:00 p.m. ET this year, with the Cavaliers and the Knicks getting things started from Madison Square Garden. Many of the game’s other top teams will be in action as well, which includes players like Victor Wembanyama, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Stephen Curry, and Nikola Jokic suiting up for their respective teams.
Fortunately, there aren’t many big names to monitor on the NBA injury report for Christmas Day. Evan Mobley is officially listed as questionable, but all of the other big stars appear good to go as of this writing.
Still, it’s important to keep an eye on the status of key players ahead of tip-off. If there are any last-minute absences, be sure to use tools like CourtIQ and our NBA starting lineups page to search for inefficiencies in the player prop and DFS markets.
Below, you can find 3 of my favorite picks for Thursday, December 25th!
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Best NBA Player Props for Thursday, December 25th
Here are my top player prop bets for today, with tip-off scheduled for 12:00 PM ET on Thursday, December 25th:
- Karl-Anthony Towns Over/Under 21.5 Points
- Anthony Davis Over/Under 24.5 Points
- LeBron James Over/Under 6.5 Assists
Karl-Anthony Towns OVER 21.5 Points (-118, BetMGM)
BETMGMTowns averaged 23.0 points per game in November and is averaging 23.6 points per game so far in December. On Thursday, he draws a rather favorable matchup with a Cleveland team that has been underwhelming defensively this year. In their last 8 games, Cleveland ranks 23rd in defensive rating.
Towns is coming off of a 40-point showing on Tuesday and profiles well in this matchup against a defense that has struggled to contain shooting bigs of late. Nikola Vucevic has scored 20+ points twice against Cleveland in the last week alone. There is value on the over.
Anthony Davis UNDER 24.5 Points (-104, DraftKings)
DRAFTKINGSDavis enters play having scored 35 points and 31 points in his last 2 games, but he posted those numbers on 57.1% shooting and 63.2% shooting from the field. Davis is a career 52.3% shooter and is roughly in line with that efficiency so far this season.
The Warriors are one of the league’s better defenses in the restricted area, which is where Davis attempts nearly half of his shots. It’s unlikely that we see Davis’ recent run of efficiency continue in this matchup.
LeBron James UNDER 6.5 Assists (+100, FanDuel)
FANDUELJames has cleared this number in exactly half of the games in which he’s played alongside Luka Doncic this season. However, he’s had 9 potential assists or fewer in 5 of his last 8 such games, so there’s some evidence to indicate that he’s been lucky to achieve a 50% hit rate so far this year.
Since James returned to the lineup on November 18, he’s been just 1 of 3 significant distributors for the Lakers, with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves each averaging 9.1 or more potential assists per game as well. In a tough matchup against a Rockets defense that doesn’t allow a lot of assists, James is going to have a difficult time going over this number.
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