NBA prop picks February 2: Bet on LeBron to pile up points again

With the NHL and NFL on hiatus, extra attention should be on the NBA’s seven-game slate tonight.

The pregame narrative: LeBron James continues his pursuit of the NBA scoring record tonight, and we’re backing him to score 30-plus points against the Indiana Pacers. Anthony Davis’ rebounding prop is also enticing in that matchup, while C.J. McCollum provides a bit of plus-money value later on.

Find all our best NBA props picks for February 2 below.

Odds as of 9:15 a.m. ET on 02/02/2023.

NBA prop picks

Best Bet: Davis over 11.5 rebounds (-104)

The Lakers must be glad to have Davis back in the lineup after more than a month lost to a foot injury. And we’re glad Davis is back, too, because he’s a great player to target when the right matchup comes along.

A player that recently returned from injury might be at risk of a minutes restriction, but Davis has played three games post-injury — and his minutes have climbed each time. Two nights ago, he logged 37 minutes against the Knicks, giving us faith that his workload will remain solid in the games to come.

With that in mind, we like Davis to be a menace on the glass tonight against a Pacers squad that doesn’t fare well against big men.

Indiana has one of the worst rebounding rates in the league (48.7%, 25th in the NBA) and allows the fourth-most rebounds to centres among all teams, according to FantasyPros.

Davis is averaging 11.9 rebounds this season and has cleared this line in 17 of 28 games. A typical performance from him should get this done.

Key stat: Davis grabbed 13 rebounds against the Pacers back in November.

Quick picks

James over 29.5 points (-120): It won’t be long until James sets the NBA’s all-time scoring record, as he’s barreling toward it with some high-scoring games of late.

He’s still 89 points away, so it’s not that we expect him to break the record just yet, but taking the over on this prop aligns him with his season-long scoring average (30.2 points/game).

James has 30-plus points in six of his past nine games, averaging 34.4 in that span.

McCollum over 2.5 threes (+104): He’s slowed down a bit in the past handful of games, but McCollum has been quite active beyond the arc this season.

Dating back to mid-December, the shooting guard has cleared this mark in 16 of 23 games (69.6%), averaging 8.8 attempts from deep in those games.

Plus-money odds paired with a trend like that are worth your consideration.