Suns vs. Bucks Game 4 Player Props, Picks: Bets for Paul, Ayton, & Holiday

by Andy Means (meansy53) Last Updated 2021-07-13 18:12:07

Milwaukee has officially made this a series with a dominating win over Phoenix in Game 3. And with a huge Game 4 on tap for Wednesday night, it’s time to start looking at some Suns-Bucks player props. Below are three of my favorite Game 4 prop bets that are currently available across various U.S. sportsbooks.

Suns vs. Bucks Game 4 NBA Player Props

Chris Paul, Over 8.5 Assists (-115)

Tuttle was all over this prop when he wrote about it for Game 3, and CP3 still got there despite playing far fewer minutes than anticipated (largely due to the blowout). And for Game 4, I think we should be going right back to the over on this prop again.

As a basis for comparison, let’s look at CP3’s minutes, potential assists, and actual assists for each game in this series, per NBA Advanced Stats.

Game 1: 37.5 minutes, 21 potential assists, 9 actual assists

Game 2: 41.5 minutes, 19 potential assists, 8 actual assists

Game 3: 33.5 minutes, 12 potential assists, 9 actual assists

I know, the over on this prop doesn’t seem like a cinch when just looking at the game log, but let’s bring in what he did in the regular season to compare:

Regular season (per game averages): 31.4 minutes, 17.3 potential assists, 8.9 assists

As you can see, he converted slightly more than half of his potential assists into actual assists during the regular season. So if he is going to be flirting with 20-ish potential assists again, I think double-digit assists (double-double prop at plus-money, anyone?) is actually more likely than eight or fewer assists.

One last thing here—and it is something I have mentioned in other articles in previous Phoenix series—but the deeper this series gets, the more I think the Suns put the ball in CP3’s hands. And the more he has the ball in his hands, the more likely he is to rack up a bunch of assists.

PICK: Over 8.5 Assists

Deandre Ayton, Over 12.5 Rebounds (+100)

Once I got past the initial sticker shock here and actually dug into the data, I really do think this is a good bet to take.

Let’s start things out by looking at something on NBA Advanced Stats called Rebound Chances (pretty self-explanatory). If we throw out Game 3 due to Ayton’s foul trouble (which is something I’m not at all worried about going forward considering that was the first time in 19 playoff games this year in which he finished with more than four fouls), here is what Ayton did in the first two games of the series.

Game 1: 38.75 minutes, 24 rebound chances, 19 rebounds

Game 2: 42.25 minutes, 24 rebound chances, 11 rebounds

If we look back to the regular season, he converted roughly 64% of his 16.4 rebound chances per game into actual rebounds (so 10.5 rebounds per game). If we look at the 16 non-Bucks playoff games, he converted roughly 60% of his rebound chances into rebounds (i.e. 11.8 rebounds per game in 36 minutes per game).

So if Ayton is going to be getting similar rebound chances to what he saw in the first two games of this series, the math says he is far more likely than not to go over this number. Clearly, based on his performances in each of those games, there is plenty of variance to this. So the fact that we can get it at plus-money has me wanting to side with the over.

The last thing to note is that it is important to remember that the Suns are without Ayton’s primary backup, Dario Saric. And considering that Frank Kaminsky has proven to be borderline unplayable, there is all kinds of minutes upside for Ayton here in Game 4. He only played 24.5 minutes in Game 3 due to that foul trouble, and there are two days off in between Games 3 and 4. It’s entirely possible that Monty Williams could really try to stretch Ayton’s minutes in Game 4 to mid-to-upper 40’s. I love having that extra out (i.e. Player X getting far more minutes than projected) when taking overs on props.

PICK: Over 12.5 Rebounds

Jrue Holiday, Under 19.5 Points (-120)

While Jrue did go over this number in Game 3, I am not anticipating it happening again in Game 4.

For whatever reason, Jrue has not shot that great in these playoffs. His three-point field goal percentage through the 20 playoff games is just 30.6%, and that includes his 5 for 10 performance in Game 3 that was the main reason he went over this number in the first place. For comparison, he shot it at a 39.2% clip during the regular season. In fact, his true shooting percentage overall in the playoffs has been just 49.4%. It was all the way up 75% in Game 3 (59.2% during the regular season).

Now you can obviously make a case there is some variance involved here, but he is also being asked to play way more minutes in the playoffs while often hounding the opposing team’s best player. For example, if you watched Game 3, the Bucks even had Jrue picking up CP3 in the backcourt some to try and tire CP3 out. But that, of course, has to be pretty draining on Jrue as well. While that didn’t do anything to hurt his shooting numbers in that game, I’m not exactly banking on him being able to repeat that performance either.

His usage has been a tad down in two of the three games in this series (including Game 3), which leads me to believe they are wanting to rely very heavily on his defensive prowess while looking more to their other two studs for the more of the scoring. Giannis has obviously played very well in this series, and I think Game 4 might be a Khris Middleton breakout game too.

So even though Jrue hit the over on this in Game 3, I am perfectly fine riding with the under here in Game 4. If you remove the two games in the Atlanta series in which Giannis missed, Jrue has gone over this number in just five of the other 18 playoff games.

PICK: Under 19.5 Points

Image Credit: Imagn