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Paul George and Sixers a Slight Underdog Against James Harden and Clippers
By Joe Tansey
Published:
You won’t find a shortage of narratives inside the Intuit Dome on Wednesday night.
Paul George will play his second game for the Philadelphia 76ers against his former team, the Los Angeles Clippers, and James Harden.
The Sixers are only a slight 1.5-point underdog against the Clippers with all but one of their starters available to play.
The Clippers, like the Sixers, are without their top star in Kawhi Leonard, and excuse the short rant but if the NBA is investigating Joel Embiid’s lack of participation, they should do the same with Kawhi. He’s only played more than 60 games once in his four years with the Clippers.
Anyway, I digress, let’s get back to the game itself.
A lot of the overall data involving the Sixers can be thrown out because five games were played without George and all of them without Embiid.
I think the best set of data points come from Monday’s two-point loss in Phoenix. A handful of stats (good and bad) stand out:
- Caleb Martin led the Sixers with 10 rebounds, Andre Drummond only had five boards against Jusuf Nurkic.
- Paul George took 14 shots (4-for-14) and contributed five rebounds and four assists.
- Guershon Yabusele, Kyle Lowry, and Eric Gordon combined for 74 of the 79 bench minutes.
- Nurkic dominated the rebound battle with 15. That’s not a good sign for the matchup with Ivica Zubac.
- The Suns had 24 assists on 42 field goals.
It’s obvious that George will need a few games to get into a shooting rhythm, but maybe the matchup with his old team will generate some extra momentum to succeed.
George’s props sit at over/under 20.5 points, over/under 4.5 rebounds and over/under 3.5 assists. His points/rebounds/assists prop is over/under 29.5 and his assists/rebounds prop is over/under 8.5.
I would look into the assist/rebound combo props because of how this matchup could go against Drummond. He’ll be occupied in a battle with Zubac, and if he was outrebounded by 10 by Nurkic, a similar fate could await him on Wednesday.
Hell, even Zach Edey had a double-double against Drummond and the Sixers this past weekend.
Harden’s prop totals are set higher than George’s because he’s averaging 8.7 rebounds and 9.9 assists per game. I would look into the over on Harden’s assists and rebounds prop of 16.5, which is plus money at DraftKings, due to a few of the trends I mentioned above that are going against the Sixers.
While we’re on the topic of combo props, Caleb Martin’s assists/rebounds number will be fascinating to track now with George in the lineup. Martin’s averaging 7.3 boards and 2.8 assists per game and had 10 boards on Monday. I’d also look into the over on Martin’s points/rebounds prop of 14.5. He had 15 P/R against the Suns and was the Sixers’ best rebounder on the defensive glass.
BetMGM has a 20% odds boost token available for any NBA bet, bet365 is offering a 30% boost on NBA Same Game Parlays, and DraftKings has a stepped up boost you can use on NBA parlays or Same Game Parlays. These are typical PA betting promos and NJ sportsbook promos that recur throughout the regular season. DraftKings allows you to put combo props in a SGP. A combo of George over 8.5 R/A, Harden over 16.5 R/A and Martin 15+ P/R gets you to +650, which is very doable given the trends at hand.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.