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 bucket props. And we’ve decided to pass that knowledge on to you with our first bucket bets for April 28. 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 bucket props for April 28.
Come check out what we have cooked up for this slate of games.
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NBA First Bucket Props – April 28
Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Miami Heat
Tipoff – 7:30 pm EST
Little Caesars Arena – Miami, FL
Broadcast – TNT
In Games 2 and 3 of this series, the Heat have managed to score first. However, that’s a trend that I simply cannot get behind. The Cavaliers were the best team in the league when it comes to winning the tip – and 65.7% of tip winners scored the first bucket this season. Additionally, they were the best team in the league when it came to scoring first. They led the Heat in those metrics by 16.7% and 15.4% respectively. You have to assume that we’ll get a regression back to the mean and see Cleveland on the board here first at -180.
If we’re getting greedy and going with a player, why not Jarrett Allen. He’s the only Cavaliers player who has shown up in the shot log’s first three shots in each of the games in this series. Additionally, he’s taken the team’s first shot in two of the three games of the series. Despite all of that, he’s not even close to being the odds-on favorite here – so I’m loving the number.
First Bucket Bet for April 28: Jarrett Allen (+650)
Houston Rockets vs. Golden State Warriors
Tipoff – 10:00 pm EST
Chase Center – San Francisco, CA
Broadcast – TNT
The Rockets has an ugly 43.0% win rate on the tip during the year. Despite that fact, they still finished 8th in the league in first buckets with a 55.7% win rate. That’s a huge difference on the conversion, which speaks to the defense and shot selection early in the game. The added bonus here is that they’ll be the team with the better tip percentage in this one. The Warriors lag behind them by 1.7% this year on the tip. Additionally, they haven’t been as good at making that deficit up. They rank 26th in first bucket success rate in the NBA.
We’ll look down ballot for a longshot in this one. While he wasn’t active early in either of the first two games of this series, Fred VanVleet took the first two shots for the Rockets out of the gate in Game 3. Perhaps that was just an outlier, or perhaps it was an issue with the defense they found to exploit. It’s worth a four figure line to find out.
First Bucket Bet for April 28: Fred VanVleet (+1100)
If you’d like even more info to help make your first bucket bets for April 28, check out the NBA Gambling Podcast. They’re dropping episodes five days a week to make you the smartest guy/gal at the bar.
