Top Plays for Wednesday’s NBA Play-In Matchups

• The NBA Play-In Tournament has begun, with Wednesday featuring the second set of games.
• The Chicago Bulls will travel to face the odds-on favorite Toronto Raptors on the Eastern Conference side of things.
• Meanwhile, the Western Conference will showcase the underdog Oklahoma City Thunder against the New Orleans Pelicans.

TORONTO – With the NBA season wrapped up, we now move onto the Play-In Tournament that features eight teams with four playing on Tuesday and the other four on Wednesday. Wednesday’s games will feature the Toronto Raptors taking on the Chicago Bulls while the New Orleans Pelicans host the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Unsurprisingly, both of the higher seeds are the favorites heading into the game, with the Raptors and Pelicans being favored by the same -220 odds on legal betting sites. Many player props for each team also sports value that can be taken advantage of for good odds and profit potential.

4/12 Play-In Odds

Player Props Dominate Value in Raptors vs Bulls

The matchup this season lend some credence to the total under, as they have done so in every matchup this year. Yet, this time around it is about five points under the lowest total they were given during their regular season matchups.

Instead, NBA player props are among the best value, with almost every player sporting between plus odds up to around -130. A particularly interesting player for this matchup is Nikola Vucevic’s combo lines. Any over for Vucevic’s lines including 30.5 points, rebounds, and assists (-120), 27.5 points and rebounds (-125), or 20.5 points and assists (+105) have great track records.

Out of these options, 30.5 points, rebounds, and assists is likely the best as Vucevic has covered this line in five straight games against the Raptors, even after they traded for center Jakob Poeltl. He also covered this line in four out of his last five games where he played at least 20 minutes.

He did noticeably drop the number of rebounds he usually got when Poeltl joined the Raptors in his only matchup vs the big man, meaning those not confident in him cleaning the glass can take his points and assists line of 20.5 at nice +105 odds instead.

Pelicans Player Prop Targets OKC’s Weakness

Similar to the Bulls vs Raptors game, the game lines here are not very attractive as they have mostly split on the wins, total, and spread. However, looking at each team’s makeup and how they have fared this year against positional matchups leads us to likely the best player prop available being Jonas Valanciunas rebounds.

With a line of 11.5 rebounds featuring -130 odds to go over on online sportsbooks, there is a lot to love with the Pelicans big man. Namely, while Valanciunas has generally suffered from inconsistent minutes throughout the season, the shortening of bench sizes and increases to starter minutes in the postseason greatly helps his chances.

Even in limited minutes, Valanciunas knows his primary job is to pick up boards no matter what, and he has often come near 12 or more rebounds even when playing around 20 minutes. In both games with the Pelicans against the Thunder where he played at least 30 minutes, he totaled 15 and 16 rebounds.

To make this even sweeter, the Thunder have been flat-out bad against centers this year, allowing the fourth most rebounds in the league at 16 on average.

If Valanciunas plays a reasonable allotment of 25+ minutes, he should have little problem cleaning the glass against Jaylin Williams and co., giving his -130 odds great value despite being one of the more favored props in the game.