There are only two weeks left in the NBA regular season, and teams are competing for optimal playoff positioning in the home stretch. Two of the four top seeds in the Western Conference square off Monday, as the fourth-place Los Angeles Lakers (45-29) host the second-place Houston Rockets (49-26) at 10 p.m. ET. Houston has won its past five road games and 12 of its last 13 overall contests, surging its way to the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.
On the flip side, the Lakers have struggled a bit—losing four of their past six and eight of their past 13. Los Angeles did pick up a big win against the Memphis Grizzlies Saturday, giving the Lakers a one-game cushion for the fourth and final homecourt slot for the opening round of the Western Conference playoffs. Luka Doncic scored 29 points in that affair to go along with nine assists and eight rebounds.
Los Angeles opened as a 3.5-point home favorite to Houston, and this spread has been bet up to Los Angeles -4.5. The Lakers are -187 (bet $187 to win $100) on the money line according to SportsLine consensus, while the Rockets are +156 (bet $100 to win $156) underdogs.
But what if you want to bet on player props, particularly on whether Doncic can lead the Lakers to another major win against a playoff team? The SportsLine model has you covered. It continuously refreshes the most recent available data and can help you spot the biggest discrepancies in the lines. The SportsLine model, which can be found on every game forecast page on SportsLine under the “Prop Picks” tab, assigns ratings of up to five stars for each projected value play on every NBA slate. Those picks can be integral to building winning parlays on DraftKings, FanDuel, PrizePicks, Underdog Fantasy or Sleeper Fantasy and in same-game parlays on any betting site.
Let’s check out the SportLine model’s three highest-rated player prop recommendations for Rockets-Lakers and see what the payout would be if they were put into a same-game parlay — and check out the optimal same-game parlay for every game on Monday’s NBA schedule at SportsLine.
Alperen Sengun Under 10.5 rebounds (-138): 3.5 stars
Sometimes it’s not the most fun to lay -138 on a wager, but this edge is too good to pass up. Sengun is projected for only 9.0 boards by the SportsLine model, which would continue a trend in which he’s gone Under his rebounding prop in four of his past five games.
Jalen Green Under 4.5 rebounds (+118): 3.5 stars
Let’s help the price of our SGP by adding a plus-money play into the fold. In the last 25 games Green has played when the Rockets have been underdogs, he hasn’t cleared his rebounding prop 18 times. The SportsLine model has only calculated him for 4.0 boards Monday, making this a solid roll of the dice at +118.
Luka Doncic Under 29.5 points (-125): 3.5 stars
Doncic is averaging 30.8 points in 14 March games with the Lakers, but he has fallen short of his points prop lately when the Lakers have been home favorites while facing a team with a top-10 defense. In the last five games where that’s happened, Doncic has gone Under his points prop four times and has put up 19.2 points in those contests. The SportsLine model likes that pattern to continue, as it’s spit out 27.3 points for the Lakers superstar.
Same-Game Parlay odds: +577
