8-1 RUN! Pacers vs Thunder Game 1 Best Bets, Picks and Predictions!

0:00 The NBA finals are here, baby. The Indiana Pacers are on the road to take on the Oklahoma City Thunder. It is game one and my best picks are on the way. In this video, I have my favorite player prop. We'll have a series pick that comes in at plus4,000 odds. I encourage you to tap into that. Then we'll obviously have my pick on the side in total in this game, who I think wins the season series season spread and all these things in between. If you are new, my name is Austin. Thank you as always for tuning in. The last time you saw me for my NBA people was in game six of the Knicks and Pacers series. While my Knicks went home, we did cash our only prop in the game, which was Tyresese Halleurn's over in points. Now on a eight and one run in the NBA postseason. Unfortunately, my Knicks lost and so did the ladder challenge, which is a tough one, but we'll talk about the ladder later in life. We did also cash our

0:46 underdog slip, so you got the 6.55x your money. And if this doesn't show you how sharp these NBA lines are, I don't know what does. Hallelurn ends a point higher. OG and Macau a point three lower and Aish with a one and a half points lower. That's pretty pretty sharp. That's where they are. We are in this NBA postseason. But I'm excited. We have a few days. We had a few days off for the NBA, but we are back and ready to go. Hopefully ready to end this season in style. Before we dive in my favorite prop, as always, we end these videos talking about our underdog fantasy slip. Reminder, underdog fantasy. You sign up using my code COS. Please do it. They'll give you a $1,000 deposit match and they'll give you this free pick for SGA to get you a one point. Take advantage of that down below. Reminder, here are all the states where Underog is available. And if it's in your state, what are you waiting for? It's free

1:31 money. Sign up using that code COS or the link down below. Like I said, we'll begin with my prop, but I encourage you to stick around for my plus 4,000 series prop. I think we got some value on it. Let's dive into my favorite player prop in this game before we get into a bunch of other things. Sit back, relax. Let's have ourselves an NBA Finals. favorite player prop is Andrew Nemhard over 10 and a half points. Now, me and Nehard I have a uh love hate relationship. Um really not really. I've only bet on him once and it was in what game five of the Knicks series and he did not come through for us, but heck, I'm pretty sure every single Pacer went under in that game. Um but I think this is a perfect spot in a perfect series for Andrew Demhard. And I'll talk kind of how about how I think the series goes later on in this video. Uh but I think they need Nhard. I think he is a big X-factor, if not the biggest one. We know Hallebertton's going to do his thing. But again, we think about

2:17 Hallebertton and in the series that he has struggled a little bit scoring the basketball series. You point to the series against the Cavaliers. What happened? They started picking him up full court. What are the Thunder going to do? Pick him up full court. He's going to have to deal with uh the guys being super annoying. Guys like uh Lou Dort, Alex Caruso, those guys are going to be pests on Nemhard or on Albertton the whole game. So wouldn't shock me if Nemhard brings the ball up a little bit more. Wouldn't shock me if he gets open opportunities as well. And we've seen him have good success against this team before. If you look at his numbers this season, pretty good numbers. 23 points on 17 shots, 16 points on 13 shots. Two games that they lost. Now, I do want to highlight in this game, Aaron E. Smith did not play this game. Benedict Matie did not play. So, we know those guys are going to be active. But again, the usage

3:02 rate was there like over 22 and a 28% usage in those games. And they're going to need him out there. Let's be honest. They need his defense and they need his playmaking. Not only will Hannah Burton be covered and smothered the whole entire game, they need other guys that can create shots for others. And while sure Benedict Matie can get his own shot, he ain't setting up anyone else. So again, I wouldn't be shocked if Nemhard sets up his teammates a little bit more, but also just as a higher usage percentage here. Also, what I'd like to see is his defense. We we know he's a great defender and they need him out there, especially with Aaron Nmith. Who knows how healthy he will be with his ankle injury. But you think about the familiarity here. Who do you think has guarded SGA the most? Uh probably Andrew Nehard. And while we don't necessarily want him on him one-on-one the whole game because that could get him into foul trouble, it does yield to him playing more minutes. Well, how why

3:47 has he guarded him so much? Well, they're on the Canadian national team together. So, again, they've probably played against each other in practices non-stop before. So, I think Nemhard argu I mean, he did a really good job on Brunson in that game six victory. He's going to be needed out there and I think his usage is going to be pretty high. So, I do really like Andrew Nehard. I we've talked about him on the road. That's typically where he shows up better whereas his other teammates can't count on him as much. But what I really like about him is he's a three-level scorer. He can take guys off the dribble. He can get into the paint. He can shoot free throws. He can get into the mid-range. He can knock down open spot up threes. We know the Thunder give up spot up threes. I think Nemhard could be a guy that they leave open. Uh it wouldn't shock me at all. So again, this game should be pretty fast-paced. If Tyres Hallebertton gets the ball and he's just like, I don't want to deal with Lou Door pestering me the whole field uh whole court, he will probably kick it up to Nemhar and we can see

4:32 Nemhard maybe get a full head of steam, get to the free throw line, do that thing. 11 points. I think they absolutely need that. I think it's a series where he has multiple games where he scores 15. He might even have a 20 point game in the series. They need Nhar to step up. I love him as my favorite player prop in this game. Now, I do have a series prop. I don't really bet a lot of these and uh we only will be sprinkling on this one, but I think this one has significant value at plus 4,000. Now, is this going to be the lock of this century? Probably not, but I think there's value here and maybe if we're lucky as the SE series goes on, maybe we have a chance to hedge, but we'll see. We'll figure that out later in life. Let's talk about Pascal Seakum to lead the NBA Finals in threes at plus4,000. Just a 0.1 unit play. So, we're not necessarily taking our whole bank account and throwing it on it. So, it's a 0.1 unit play. If you normally play a hundred bucks on the plays, you

5:19 put 10 bucks here. If you normally put whatever uh $10 on the plays, you put a dollar. I mean, you'll get a good return on the money if this somehow does come home. Uh obviously, Pascal Seakum is not the leader in terms of odds for this one. In terms of the lowest odds, he's far from that. And I'll kind of highlight why I think we have value on Seakum for threes. Now, he's not necessarily known for being a three-point shooter. So, if you're looking at the guys, and we'll point out the whole list in just one second, but plus 4,000, I think he has just as good of odds as some of his teammates who are much half of his price, uh, 25%. I mean, there are some of his teammates that are so much more not great value, whereas plus 4,000, I think we got a chance. But, let's first I want to highlight, and I looked at his over and threes in this first game. I want to highlight the head-to-head matchup here and then I'll talk about the other guys that he'll be obviously competing against. Um

6:04 head-to-head wise this series this season, Seakkum has fared well. This is three-pointers. He made five in one of the games on seven three-point attempts and five in the other game. I mean, granted, look, 31 minutes and 27 minutes. So, not even full uh minutes, but five and seven three-point attempts, which is pretty dang good. Um, now, is he going to consistently shoot five of seven? Um, probably not. But again, if we were to just look more at this matchup, we think about the Thunder. What are they so good at doing? Stopping number one, pick and roll guys like Tyresese Haliban from scoring. And number two, really scoring in the paint is very difficult. But what they do concede is a lot of spot-up shooting. I mean, we've talked about in the Nugget series. Aaron Gordon was knocking down two threes consistently. That's kind of Seakum's role here. He's not known for being a three-point shooter, but heck, Aaron Gordon isn't, and Aaron Gordon

6:50 made a good amount of threes in that series. Heck, Christian Brown made a good amount of series uh threes, which might bode well for maybe our pick for SG or Nehard's over in points. Maybe he knocks down a couple threes here, but they're going to leave guys open. And we think about who his matchup is. It's probably Chad Homegrren. Chad Homegrren originally is going to want to on any drives converge towards the paint. And we'll see Pascal get some open opportunities, hence why he shot seven and 53 so far in the two games against them. Now, if you were to highlight the games that the the other guys in front of him, I get it. This is plus 4,000. So, we're kind of looking at kind of trying to pick a needle in the haststack. But again, plus 4,000. We know Halenurn's going to lead this one in odds. He's the number one three-point shooter. And Nmith is a great three-point shooter as well, but there's injury risk here. There's chance that he just doesn't shoot well. Or maybe they stick to him like like Lou Door. We get

7:37 it. I know he's going to get those. So, I'm I'm understanding why these three guys are all at leader leader leaders in the odds. But SGA, he doesn't shoot a ton of threes. Miles Turner, I get it. He could shoot some but like Miles Turner I just don't know if he's going to I mean plus 1100 to plus 4,000 I'd much prefer Stakum Jaylen Williams I'm not too high there Nemhard Chat and Caruso I mean Carus is coming off the bench he's not I just don't see him making a ton. So again a guy in Pascakam who's going to play a lot of minutes I really think there's upside here now like I said at plus 4,000 I'll take a chance. I personally think if I were to price this, I personally think he should be pretty close somewhere in here. I think he should be closer to plus 2,000 to plus three. I think it should be better odds than uh than Chad or worse

8:22 odds than Chad Homegrren, if I were to get uh honestly put one out there. That the the Pacers defense basically is predicated on, hey, we're going to leave SGA. We're going to let JDub. We're going to let these two guys beat us. They don't really double. We saw them do that a lot in the uh the Knicks series. They were just like, Jaylen Brunson, get as much usage as you want. we'll live with those two-pointers because we're confident we could score on the other side. So again, I really but the Thunder defense. So from that standpoint, if the Pacers are going to just be like, "Hey, SG, JD, you beat us by yourselves. We'll stay tight on your role players." I don't see either of those ties shooting a ton of volume from three. And then from the Thunder side, they're going to be on guys and they're going to leave open shooters. And I think Pascal was probably one they leave open. So plus 4,000.1 units. I probably talked about this longer than a 0.1 unit play deserves, but honestly, I think we had a good chance there. plus 4,000 better

9:08 than that. Now, is it like do I think we got a plus 100 chance to cash that? Probably not. But I do think that that has value and maybe if Seakum could have a good game one or maybe he makes three like maybe four threes he could be the leader in the clubhouse then we could uh figure out some ways to hedge. But we'll worry about that later on and maybe hedge that as the season series goes on. We'll figure that out. Now, I want to talk about my se this prediction in terms of this game and then I'll get into where I think this uh the series goes kind of thing because I know a lot of people are going to be curious on that. Um in terms of this this game, game one to be specific. I would lean the Pacers plus nine and a half. Um my lanes have an 18 and 19. I did update them based on the uh the my series predictions. We lost T-Wolves plus two and a half games, but we also did cash the uh six games for the Thunder or the

9:54 Knicks series. Um, but not kind of touching on the Pacers plus nine and a half more. I like the over five and a half games in the series at plus 125. I I just don't think anyone's giving the the Thunder, the Pacers a chance. And I I get it. The Thunder are historically one of the best teams of all time. Net rating, defensive rating, you name it, they're up there. But we've also seen them struggle before. And I think the Pacers are the perfect recipe of a team that could give the Thunder some trouble. Now, I'm not saying they beat them out, right? Uh, but I do think they can steal two games. Heck, they could steal one on the road and one at home. And that's already going to six games cuz I I do think the Thunder win this series. And if I had to guess, it's probably in five or six. But I do think the Pacers have a chance. If we think about OKC, what is their identity? It is

10:39 the defensive side of the ball. And what do they do? They take away your best options. So when you have a team like the uh like the Timberwolves who have Anthony Edwards and Julius Randall, you take away those two guys with elite defenders and what happens? uh everything unravels because Rudy Goar can't score, McDaniels can't consistently score, Mike Connley can't do anything, Dante Danchenzo can't. All those guys can't do it and they turn over the ball at a high rate. They were in near the bottom 10 in turnovers per game. However, the Pacers number one, a very good team at limiting turnovers. I think they had the third or fourth fewest turnovers. We knew Hallebertton, even though he'll probably be guarded all 94 feet, was one of the best, most efficient, you know, assist to turnover ratio guys. I mean, he was having games with 15 assists, zero turnovers this postseason. Now, it's going to be a little bit harder against one of the best defenses of all time, but again,

11:26 they're really good at limiting the turnovers. And we think of when the OKC Thunder team goes on those runs where it's like 150 and you're like, the game was just five points, now it's 20. What the heck happened? It's turnovers. And if the Pacers, a team that has been really good at limiting those, can do that. I think they have a chance in this series. I'm not saying they win it outright. I'd still pick the Thunder, but I think they can win two games, but they also are really good at is they have so many guys that can contribute. A reason why I wanted the Knicks obviously to make the playoff uh the finals. That would have been cool. I didn't think we had it stood a chance against OKC because they would just load up on Brunson, take him away, and our offense would just be a disaster. They could try to take away Hallebertton, but you think about the Pacers, they have so many different guys that can contribute. Hallebertton, we know him, but Pascal Seakum, we saw him have multiple 30-point games against the Knicks.

12:12 Andrew Nehard is capable of a 20 plus point game. Aaron Nmith, Miles Turner randomly will show up. You got Benedict Mat and Obie Toppin. Probably not as much as the other guys, but again, all these guys contribute. TJ McConnell, they have such a deep team just like the Thunder have so many deep bodies that they can throw in there over and over and over again. These teams are very similar to each other as much as people probably don't want to admit. The Pacers aren't necessarily a team that are known for their defense, but they have shown the ability to step up when times needed. They have some good perimeter defenders they can throw out there, give different looks to SGA, and I trust Rick Carile to make some adjustments. So, if I had to bet anything here, we top of this one. I like the over. I think the Pacers can win two games. I don't see anyone betting on the Pacers at all in this series. Everyone just assumes, okay, see, it's a racks. They're going to easily win this. And certainly, they could. I still think they win, but I

12:57 would lean the over at five and a half at plus 125. Good money there. Uh, that's where I would lean. So, that's where I would put my money. I don't I mean, I'm talking about this way too long for a pick that I don't even have any official money on, but that is where I would lean. I would like the over. And I like the Pacers plus nine and a half in game one. Everyone's counted them out against the Cavs. thought they couldn't beat really the Knicks and they've gone in and stolen game one a team that you can't count out. They can make those comebacks and they also have really good three-point shooting. So again, the Knicks not a team that I normally say has a great three-point shooting team. They have so many bodies that can contribute. I would lean the Pacers in this series if I had to bet it. I like the over at two and a five and a half games. I like that better than taking the Pacers plus two and a half. Although that is the same thing sort of unless you think the Pacers uh I mean the Pacers plus two and a half is probably

13:42 not cashing unless they win 4-1 and I just don't see them beating the Thunder 4-1. So I'd much rather the plus 125 if you want to go that way and join join the lean squad ride. Uh in terms of some other props in this game we'll get to my underdog fantasy entry reminder. This is a longer video than normal underdog fantasy sign up using my code $1,000 deposit match and they'll give you this SGA free pick. Again here are all the states that underdog is available in. If it's in your state, you better sign up now. Now, now we'll be doing a bunch of these entries the NBA finals as well as we'll be doing some in the MLB. Um, here's some other legs I looked at. We already talked about Pascal Syakam. I like him to make threes. I don't like the series for Cheddom for all the different reasons. Uh, the the Pacers are a really good team at limiting the other guys. They're basically are going to beg someone like uh SJ to beat him by themselves. Hence why his line's 33 and a half, which I like him to score 30 in this game. I'm fading Albert for points

14:29 and I'm back into Mr. for points. Uh, I don't really need to go into depth on all these. Uh, $20 on this turns into over 100. You can tell it if you seek onrog. Now we end with my wife's pick. Um, we'll see what she cooked up. She cooked up this mouse Turner's under in points and I don't honestly hate that one. A mouse Turner been bad on the road. Tough match up here. He's going to have to knock down open threes and I don't see him being able to do that consistently. They'll lead him out there. I don't mind maybe some rebounds, but uh, she liked his under 13 and a half points. So, hey, there you go. The wife seeing if she can go to six and six. But officially the only picks tracked towards my record for a 15-minute video, which is way too long than it should be. Nemhards over in points for game one. And we're on a little bit of a sprinkle on Pascal Seakum threes leader in the finals.1 unit. So nothing too crazy. We'll track it at the end of the series. Ideally,

15:16 man, could come out here maybe get us like five threes. That would be lit. I don't know if we're going to get that, but we'll figure that out as the day series goes on. I'm just hoping for a competitive series. So heck, Basers could get a couple games in there. We could get maybe six, maybe seven. I wouldn't be shocked, honestly. The Pacers, I think, are a perfect type of team to really to try to fight this Thunder defense. But we'll see. I could be completely wrong. It's just the lean. Either way, let me know your favorite picks down below in the comments section. Drop a like if you're excited for the NBA Finals. Thank you if you're 15 minutes and 40 something seconds in. I appreciate you. Have a great day and good luck on your picks. I'll see you guys back for game two of the NBA Finals. I'll see you guys then. Also, I forgot to mention, we'll run back a ladder challenge. I haven't decided on what I'm going to do for the series. Um, since we have the NBA, MLB is going on. We'll do an MLB ladder in a little bit. I want to focus on the NBA right now. I

16:03 might be targeting like some plus plus good plus money plays. Maybe plus 150, plus 200. See what we can do with that. But we'll figure that out as the series goes on. I'll figure that out in game one. Uh, probably on Thursday when this game is going on. Either way, I'm enough yapping for me. Have a great day and I'll see you guys back in the next one. Peace.