The NBA Season is in the March grind as teams jockey for playoff positioning. Let's dive into a few key injuries and how to handle them moving forward.
NBA Player Props Betting Forecast
Naz Reid – The KAT's Meow
Schedule: March 12 at Clippers | March 16 at Jazz | March 18 at Jazz
The Minnesota Timberwolves received the bad news that All-NBA big, Karl-Anthony Towns, is undergoing surgery to repair his torn left meniscus and would be re-evaluated in a month. This is a massive blow to the Timberwolves' offense as a whole. Towns is averaging 22.1 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game on 50.6/42.3/87.4 shooting splits and the second-highest Usage on the team (25.6%). As a team, Minnesota is +4.1 with Towns on the floor but the biggest swing is offensively, as he is a +7.9 for the team on the offensive side of the floor, per Cleaning the Glass.
In his stead, the team will use a combination of Naz Reid and Kyle Anderson. Anderson sees no noticeable uptick in counting stats without KAT this season. However, Naz Reid has been a revelation without KAT and has already seen his 6th Man of the Year odds drop precipitously over the last few days.
Naz Reid has now scored 34 points against the Cavaliers and then put up 25 against the Lakers on Sunday night. He's an excellent spacing big and is taking 44% of his shots from 3-point range this season. That is a significant uptick from KAT who took 31% of his from deep. The key here is that Reid still shoots 42% from deep with that volume. His points prop was set at 17.5 on Sunday night with Rudy Gobert out. I'm curious to see where it comes in on Tuesday night against the Clippers but he has forced himself into the rotation with his offense. In five games without KAT this season he has now scored: 25, 34, 13, 22, and 6.
Another player to watch is Rudy Gobert. Gobert has been absurd on the glass without Towns. In four games without KAT, Gobert has logged 17, 17, 14, and 17 rebounds. He has a matchup that he has dominated on Tuesday against the Clippers, specifically against Zubac. In his last 10 games vs Zubac he has averaged 15.8 points and 13.7 rebounds. He has 10+ rebounds in 9/10 and 15+ in 5/10. I'll be looking for his props on Tuesday night.
Anthony Edwards also sees a bump in his production with his scoring jumping to over 30 points per game without Towns. This is mostly due to necessity as he becomes the team's primary and almost only scoring option. As a result, his turnovers also increase from 3.1 to 3.4 per game.
Evan Mobley is out, Donovan Mitchell in
Schedule: March 11 vs. Suns | March 13 at Pelicans | March 16 at Rockets
The Cleveland Cavaliers have been without both Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell for the last week and Mobley is expected to miss extended time with his ankle injury. Mitchell on the other hand, has been dealing with a knee injury for which he received a Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) injection and he was to be re-evaluated over this past weekend. Mitchell is expected to miss Monday's game against the Suns but is making progress towards a return.
Mitchell's return should immediately improve the offense. Mitchell has a +4.7 Offensive EPM which is the 11th-best mark of any player in the league, per Dunks and Threes. Mitchell has a 33% Usage Rate this season and is averaging 28.0 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 6.2 assists per game this season. The rebounds and assists are career highs while the points are just 0.3 off of his career-high from last season.
With Mitchell's return, there will be significantly less asked of Darius Garland. Garland averages 17.0 points and 6.1 assists per game alongside Mitchell, which is a downturn from the 22.1 points and 6.6 assists per game he averaged in 12 games without Mitchell.
With Mobley out, Jarrett Allen has dominated. In 26 games without Mobley, Allen has averaged 17 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game. In his last 1o games, he has averaged 18.4 points, 13.0 rebounds, and 2.9 assists. He is coming off a down game against Nic Claxton and the Nets, but this matchup against Jusuf Nurkic and the Suns on Monday is exploitable. Allen has not played against Nurkic while he's been on the Suns yet, but in 5 games against Nurkic since he joined the Cavaliers, Allen has recorded 10+ rebounds in all five games and 13+ rebounds in 4/5. He has also scored well with exactly 24 points in 3 of those games. We will see what his prop lines come out at for this game, but 13.5 or 14.5 RA would be a play for me.
This week, the matchup against Jonas Valanciunas and the Pelicans is a tough one but the matchup on Saturday is interesting against a Rockets team who likely will be without Alperen Sengun.
Houston, We have a problem
Schedule: March 12 at Spurs | March 14 vs. Wizards | March 16 vs. Cavaliers
The Houston Rockets suffered a tough loss to the Kings on Sunday, but the bigger loss is to rising star Center, Alperen Sengun who needed to be carted off the floor after suffering a left lower-leg injury. We don't know the extent of this injury or how much time he will miss at the time of this writing, but it's expected that he will miss time.
Sengun has only missed 1 game this season, and just 7 games last season. Without Sengun, I'd normally want to pivot to Tari Eason; however, he is missing time himself. The player who is most likely to see an uptick is Jabari Smith Jr. In the one game without Sengun this season, Jabari played 37 minutes against the Hawks and had 9 points and 10 rebounds, but the scoring was down due to poor shooting, not a lack of volume. He was just 4/15 from the field and 1/7 from downtown. Without Sengun, the Rockets' spacing should change a bit and they can play more 5 out lineups.
One other player to keep an eye on will be Amen Thompson. In that same game, Thompson recorded a 12 point and 11 rebounds double double. Thompson has difficulty spacing the floor because he can't shoot the 3. But without Sengun, it may open a role up for him as an interior scorer and rebounding threat.
Finally, Jalen Green has really seen an uptick over the last few games. Green has played 28+ minutes in 8 straight games. He is averaging 22.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.1 turnovers per game. Without Sengun, this may be a chance for the Rockets to see what exactly they have in Jalen Green throughout the rest of the season as they prepare for next season.
The Spurs and the Wizards are plus matchups for this Rockets' squad while a matchup against Cleveland is much tougher. Let's target them on Tuesday against the Spurs who will be playing in the second game of a back-to-back set.
