Today’s NBA Player Prop Picks: Haliburton Continues to Shine

As the NBA season boldly trudges on in the face of a massive health and safety breach, so to do we continue to comb the remains of each team's roster for the best values in player prop markets. 

Tonight, we're targeting a variety of injury-related plays, from one player whose value is booming, to another whose value might be about to expire, and one guy whose team might not be playing much of a game tonight. 

Here are our best NBA player prop picks for Wednesday, December 22.  

NBA player props for December 22

• Matthews Over 11.5 points (+100)
• Vucevic double-double: No (+165)
• Haliburton Over 25.5 pts+asts (-115)

Picks made on 12/22/2021 at 10:35 a.m. ET.
Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.

Today’s best NBA player props

One last Rocket launch

Garrison Matthews has been a jolt of offense for the Rockets' wing corps with Jalen Green sidelined, averaging 12.9 points in December and topping tonight's total of 11.5 in eight of 11 contests. 

Now, tonight's matchup with Milwaukee isn't an amazing one — the Bucks are a great defensive team that can put any of several plus defenders on Matthews. But Garrison's already lit the Bucks up for 23 points this month, and with center Christian Wood (the Rockets' leading scorer) questionable, there could be more looks to go around for Houston this evening. 

This is also our last opportunity to take advantage of what's been a soft market underestimating a little-known player on a basement-dwelling team. With No. 2 overall draft pick Green targeting Thursday as his return from a hamstring injury, Matthews' minutes, and certainly his usage, are about to take a large hit.

Let's fire this prop while we still can, especially at even money. 

Pick: Garrison Matthews Over 11.5 points (+100 at bet365)

Vooch pooched?

(Editor's Note: This pick was published prior to Wednesday afternoon's announcement that Raptors-Bulls has been postponed.)

Nikola Vucevic is one of the NBA's most dominant rebounders by reputation, but this season, has seen his numbers fall this season on the Bulls, averaging his fewest boards since the 2017-18 season. 

Vooch's numbers have slid even further this month, where he's failed to hit double-digits in four of seven games. Tonight, the Bulls face the corpse of the Raptors' roster, which isn't a strong rebounding unit even at full strength. But, the matchup will also likely be glacier-paced given the state of Toronto's roster and their usual struggle to generate quality looks in the halfcourt. 

There's also the very real chance that Chicago puts this game out of reach early, and Vooch doesn't have to put in full effort on the glass, or even see the court in the fourth quarter. Considering he's been having trouble racking up double-doubles even in full action this month, the +165 we're getting for him to not double-double is too good to ignore.  

Pick: Nikola Vucevic double-double: No (+165 at bet365)

All the Kings' men

Normally, we're picking on the Kings in this spot, backing opposing big mens' counting stats against Sacramento's dream combination of poor rebounding and inviting lack of post defense.

But tonight, we're flipping the script and actually backing one of Sac-Town's own: Tyrese Haliburton. 

With De'Aaron Fox and Davion Mitchell both in COVID protocols, Haliburton has seen massive usage over the past three games, averaging 34.6 combined points and assists in 38.6 mins per game. 

He'll continue to have unfettered opportunity tonight against the Clippers, who are the NBA's fourth-best defensive team, but actually allow above-average scoring to opposing PGs, per Hashtag Basketball. 

Haliburton's a consistent performer, and with a barely-juiced (-115) total of 25.5 in his points + assists market tonight, he'd need a huge regression from his non-Fox output to fall short, which we just don't see happening. 

Pick: Tyrese Haliburton Over 25.5 points + assists (-115 at bet365)

Pages related to this topic