NBA First Basket Scorer Odds & Picks: Thursday (11/14)
There’s only one game on the NBA slate tonight: the Dallas Mavericks vs. Utah Jazz at 9:00 p.m. ET.
Ultimately, the league is preparing for another day of the NBA Cup tomorrow. Therefore, there’s just one game today and a lot tomorrow.
I’ve added a first basket prediction for this one game.
Make sure to check out our NBA First Basket Prop Bet Cheat Sheet for help identifying all of today’s best prop bets.
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Thursday’s Best NBA First Basket Bets
(Odds courtesy of FanDuel SportsbookFanDuel)
Who will score the first basket in today’s NBA game? We compare historical first basket stats to prop bet odds to help identify today’s best bets. View first-basket odds across sportsbooks here.
Dallas Mavericks vs. Utah Jazz
Dallas’ Daniel Gafford is expected to take on Utah’s John Collins for tonight’s opening tip. Gafford has been involved in 11 tips this season. He’s only won 36% of them, resulting in just 27% made first baskets for the Mavericks this year.
Meanwhile, Collins has only participated in one opening tip this season. He lost that one tip. However, the Jazz have still scored first 80% of the time.
That said, if you go back to last season, Collins earned the tip head-to-head against Gafford twice. Collins was never great at winning the tip, but he had his way against Gafford.
Therefore, the Jazz are more likely to earn the ball first and get the first opportunity to score.
Already this season, Dallas has allowed the first basket to shooting guards 50% of the time. Utah’s starting shooting guard is currently Colin Sexton.
Sexton has added the team’s first basket in 25% of games and has two made first baskets in eight games started. He’s hit the first basket in 25% of games this season, which is very good to begin the year.
Let’s take Sexton to score the first basket at +600 odds.
Pick: Collin Sexton (+600+800)