Player props for 12/15

[alecb]

I did pretty well last night -- bet heavily on Yao to get over 34 P+R, but also lost on having Duncan over 33 P+R+A. Hindsight is always 20/20, but the Yao line was truly a gift and should have loaded up on it. Tonight I'm going to look at 2 props that I am not as heavy on as the Yao line last night.

Marcus Camby (DEN) Ov. 10½ Rebounds at -115

Camby averages 11.1 rebounds a game and has gone 11 or over in 11 of 19 games (excluding the game he was thrown out of in Miami). The Nuggets play a Celtic team without either starting power forward Kendrick Perkins or starting center Theo Ratliff. To compound this, the Celtics are 28th in the league in offensive rebounding. Camby's main enemy is typically fouls, but there is no one down low on the Celtics to get him in trouble. This game will be fast paced with lots of perimeter shooting by the Celtics -- meaning plenty of rebounding opportunities for Camby. 8 units on over.

Dirk Nowitzki (DAL) Un. 37 P+R -125

First, Dirk has only gone over 37 P+R only 3 times in the past 9 games. Second, even though they are playing the 76ers who are horrible, this game will probably be over by the 3rd quarter, if not the first half, meaning this will be a game played by the bench. Dallas is on the first end of a back to back and I don't think Dirk will play more than 25 minutes if he isn't needed otherwise. 37.5 is also 3.5 above his average. 4 units on under.

Also, Bodog had a line up for about 10 minutes this morning on -130 for Yao over 26 points. I wish I had gobbled that up.

[Ray_bob]

why would u gobble that line up by yao ming. 26 and a half seems fair to me. could you give me a reason why its crazy?

[alecb]

McGrady is out, and Head is the only other person scoring on Houston. He is averaging 33 points since McGrady's injury. The only question mark is Yao's stamina -- whether he'll be able to play a significant load of minutes after going 41 minutes last night.

[Thremp]

This game should be fairly close the entire way unless the Lakers can just completely rout them which doesn't seem likely with each team missing its 2nd best player.

Yao shouldn't match his production from last night, but in a close game he'll see a lot of shots and shouldn't have trouble amassing a ton of boards.

[thing85]

alecb,

Thanks for posting your picks + analysis. Always much appreciated. Do you think you could start posting your win-loss record & net units won? No big deal, but it's nice to follow progress of these kind of things.

[Thremp]

I'm on Yao o36.5 P+R and Kobe o10 R+A both at +100

[alecb]

Sure, I'd be happy to. I got Camby wrong, Dirk right. I also put 4 units on Yao over 26.5.

So far (this is only my second public post on player props): 2-2, -4.2 units.

[alecb]

Yao at 36 points. I should have done more. Nuggets allowed Boston to shoot 54%. Not that many rebounding opportunities with that kind of shooting percentage...

3-2, -.4 units on player props