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NBA Finals prop – For the past two weeks, I’ve advocated fading the Miami role players. In both cases, Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent had a player prop of 13.5 points at the time.
Regression struck hard, and both players have a points prop of 9.5 in Game 5 with Miami at Denver. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra continues to have a quick hook when these role players do not perform.
Which player should be faded next? Kyle Lowry had a points prop of 7.5 in the first two games of the series before it rose a half point in each of the next two games (data from the Action App, a fantastic resource for historical prop data).
I like Lowry under 9.5 points, as the thirty-seven year old reserve guard should be the next to regress. There’s also another reason that I will highlight below.
Kansas football win total – Bud Elliott of CBS Sports likes many aspects of Kansas, including coach Lance Leipold and QB Jalon Daniels. However, they also have to play defense.
The Kansas defense struggled last year, and Bud sees a huge weakness at pass rush. Kansas should beat FCS Missouri State and Nevada, but none of the remaining games have any certainty.
Bud likes Kansas under 6.5 wins, which he released at a price of -130 at BetMGM this week. You can still grab under 6.5, -170 at DraftKings. Follow Bud on Instagram for all of his college football insights (his win total bets are under 2023 plays).
NBA 3 points shooting – A recent tweet by Edward Egros pointed out that the NBA has stats on wide open threes. Presumably, they use player tracking data to get statistics on shots in which a defender is six or more feet away from the shooter.
Here are the shooting percentages for the Finals teams on wide open threes (NBA regular season average is around 38%):
- Denver: 40.6% regular season, 38.2% playoffs.
- Miami: 37.1% regular season, 46.0% playoffs.
For Miami, Kyle Lowry has seen the biggest playoff surge. He made 31.8% of his open threes in the regular season but 52.0% in the playoffs.
Randomness plays a big role in three point shooting, which means regression is looming for Miami and Kyle Lowry in particular. This is another reason to fade his point total in Game 5.
However, this does not imply a lack of skill in shooting these long jump shots. I broke this down in a recent solo episode of The Football Analytics Show and showed how the statistics look like QB interception rate in the NFL.
Miami Dolphins – In a recent patron episode of The Football Analytics Show, I discussed my research on how passing success rate is very predictive QB metric. Let’s look at the numbers for the three players who took snaps for Miami compared to the NFL average of 42.8% (attempts include plays that end in sacks).
- Tua Tagovailoa, 47.7%, 421 attempts.
- Teddy Bridgewater, 44.8%, 87 attempts.
- Skylar Thompson, 32.9%, 161 attempts.
Schedule adjustments move Bridgewater closer to Tagovailoa. Bridgewater had most of his attempts against the solid defenses of Cincinnati and New England.
However, the rookie Thompson really struggled, especially with a 30% passing success rate against Buffalo in the playoffs. This fall, The Power Rank will feature adjusted passing success rate by QB.
Golf humor – After a year of acrimony, the PGA tour merged with hated rival LIV golf. The marriage brought joy to those golfers that took the huge LIV signing bonuses (bottom video).
The incomparable Annie Agar also brought hilarity to the scene based on The Office.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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