Some people like to sweat out a bet for 48 hard minutes – others like immediate satisfaction. Count us as being in the latter, which is why we like to get down with NBA first scorer props. And we’ve decided to pass that knowledge on to you with our first scorer bets for March 21. Go here for NBA Championship odds.
Of course, there are plenty out there taking blind guesses at this stuff. It’s easy to pick the most popular player or look at what happened in the last game. However, we spent the time pouring through the analytics to make sure that we give you the best odds to stay in the green on these first scorer props for March 21.
Come check out what we have cooked up for this slate of games.
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NBA First Scorer Props – March 21
New Orleans Pelicans vs. Minnesota Timberwolves
Tipoff – 8:00 pm EST
Target Center – Minneapolis, MN
Broadcast – NBA TV
On Friday, one of the team’s we’re expecting to get on the board first is the Timberwolves. Sure, they don’t have that big of a lead over the Pelicans when it comes to first bucket success – just 3.5% – but they do have some other advantages. The main one here being that they have been great on the tipoff. The Timberwolves are 11th in the NBA when it comes to tipoff wins, and they have a comfortable 24.9% lead over the Pelicans, who are one of three teams under 30% in the metric. With tip winners getting 66.0% of the first buckets this year, that’s a good enough reason to back Minnesota here.
If we’re looking for an individual player, and aren’t just playing the side, we’ll go with Rudy Gobert. He regularly gets early looks for the Timberwolves and has been great getting to the foul line early. He’s taken one of their first three shots in two of the last three games. New Orleans is also 29th in the league in allowing points in the paint, which means we can rely on the bigs in this one.
First Scorer Bet for March 21: Rudy Gobert (+600)
Denver Nuggets vs. Portland Trail Blazers
Tipoff – 10:00 pm EST
Moda Center – Portland, OR
Broadcast – NBA TV
Neither of these teams have been all that great on the tip this year. In fact, they post the same sub-par percentage when it comes to winning the tip – 47.1%. However, the Nuggets have been doing a far better job at converting those chances. Despite having the same amount of chances, the Nuggets are finishing their first buckets at a clip that is 7.2% better than the Blazers. As a result, I feel pretty comfortable that they get the first score in this one.
If we’re looking at the early shot logs, there are really only two options here. If you take the first three shots from each of the Nuggets’ last three games, two players account for 66.7% of those shots. Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr. have gotten the lion’s share of the work recently. Gordon has the team’s last first bucket, which typically doesn’t get repeated all that often. When you combine that with the fact that Porter Jr. has more first shots and better odds for us, we’ll go with him.
First Scorer Bet for March 21: Michael Porter Jr. (+600)
If you’d like even more info to help make your first scorer bets for March 21, check out the NBA Gambling Podcast. They’re dropping episodes five days a week to make you the smartest guy/gal at the bar.
