The NBA Thursday slate features four games and plenty of opportunities to make some money tonight over on Underdog Fantasy with our Underdog Fantasy NBA pick’em top plays. Tonight’s slate features some marquee matchups as the Los Angeles Lakers take on the Boston Celtics and the Indiana Pacers face off against the New York Knicks. When it comes to finding the right plays for our Underdog Fantasy NBA pick'em plays today, we are looking to target matchups with solid game totals, competitive spreads and projections we can exploit.

 

Underdog Fantasy NBA Pick'em Top Plays

Jaylen Brown, SF Boston Celtics

Truth be told, I like to run it back with certain plays when they hit for us, especially when the line doesn’t move and that is what we have here tonight with Jaylen Brown’s first quarter scoring projection being set at six points. In fact, we actually played this line at 6.5 the other day against the Pacers. As I explained on Tuesday, targeting the right first quarter prop is all about understanding NBA rotations. Jaylen Brown plays the first 10 minutes of the first quarter. Half of that time is played without Jayson Tatum on the floor. When Tatum is off the floor Brown has an elite usage and scoring rate. We are also looking at a matchup here in the Lakers who rank 30th in defending the three-point line and Brown is currently sitting at -150 to finish with more than 1.5 three-pointers tonight. If Brown can get hot from three in this game early, the six points should be more of a mound than a mountain for him to climb here this evening.

Pick: Higher than 6.0 1Q Points

 

John Collins, C Utah Jazz

The Utah Jazz have been a fun team to watch this season and one of the more interesting players on their team this year has been John Collins. We’ve seen Collins go through stretches where he was looking like one of the best players on the court and then we’ve seen stretches where he was in the doghouse and barely getting on the floor. Right now, we are on one of those good stretches where Collins is averaging 16.4 points and 10.6 rebounds over the last five games. Tonight, the Jazz are at home after being on the road for six straight. The opponent tonight is the Philadelphia 76ers who are going to be without Joel Embiid here this evening, a huge bonus for us looking to play Collins tonight and what we are looking to target is his rebound line. Collins has finished with more than eight rebounds in four of the last five games. The one game where he missed, he had seven rebounds and played just 21 minutes due to the team getting blown out by 30 to the Nets. On the season, when playing at least 25 minutes, Collins has a near 70% hit rate on this projected total. Not having to compete with Joel Embiid for rebounds is going to make his life a whole lot easier here this evening. 

Pick: Higher than 8.0 Rebounds

Isaiah Hartenstein, C New York Knicks

The Knicks have a home matchup tonight against the Indiana Pacers in a game that is a huge pace up for New York with a high 240.5 game total. What this typically means is that there will be plenty of shot attempts going up and therefore plenty of rebounding opportunities for our guy Hartenstein here tonight. The Knicks are still without Julius Randle, and we saw Hartenstein play 29 minutes against the Jazz the other night which should indicate his minutes ceiling is not going to be an issue in this matchup. The minutes ceiling is great news because when Hartenstein has played at least 25 minutes this year he has been a rebounding machine, finishing with double-digit rebounds in nine of the last 10 games. Let's target the Knicks big man here in this matchup tonight.

Pick: Higher than 9.5 Rebounds