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The NBA returns from its break with a nine-game slate on Thursday night.
The pregame narrative: LeBron James should thrive in a marquee matchup against the Golden State Warriors, Zach Collins isn’t a reliable source of points and Jarrett Allen could have his hands full on the boards.
Find all our best NBA props picks for February 23 below.
NBA odds as of 11:16 a.m. ET on 02/23/2023.
NBA prop picks
Best Bet : LeBron James over 27.5 points (-113)
LeBron is dealing with a minor hand contusion, but that’s not enough to scare us off this line.
The NBA scoring leader has produced 30.0 points per game this season, and he’s been even better this year, with a 32.4-point average since 2023 began — hitting this over in 10 of 17 games.
We would only explore this under if we felt like LeBron was facing a particularly difficult matchup, which isn’t the case here.
The Warriors allow the fourth-most points in the NBA (118.5/game) and their defence falls off a cliff on the road (123.5). Golden State is also weak at defending power forwards like LeBron, allowing the seventh-most points in the NBA to them (per FantasyPros).
Los Angeles’ superstar already demonstrated his ability to thrive in this matchup in the season opener, hanging 31 points on the Warriors at Oracle Arena.
We expect a similar performance from him on Thursday on his home court.
Key stat: LeBron has cleared this line in 60% of his games this season.
Quick picks
Collins under 13.5 points (-130) : Although Collins has had some splashy outings in recent weeks, this line is simply too high for him. The San Antonio Spurs centre is averaging 10.0 points per game this season, going over this line just 16.7% of the time.
To be fair to Collins, he’s recently joined the starting lineup, but in 11 starts this season he’s averaged 12.4 points and hit this under eight times.
The big man doesn’t have an easy matchup on Thursday, either, as the Dallas Mavericks have conceded the eighth-fewest points to centres in the NBA this season.
Allen under 10.5 rebounds (-122) : This is a difficult line for Allen, who’s averaging 9.9 rebounds per game with 10 or fewer boards in 53.7% of his appearances this season.
He could be in tough on Thursday against Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets.
Thanks in part to Jokic’s mastery on the glass, Denver allows the third-fewest rebounds to centres in the league while producing the sixth-best rebounding rate overall.
When Allen faced the Nuggets on January 6, he managed just nine rebounds despite an above-average minutes load (35:35).
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