This season’s NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder get underway this Tuesday night with Game 1 of a best-of-seven series.

While WagerWeb sportsbook has you covered with a complete set of daily lines for each of the games, there is still time to get in on all the action with some series prop bets that not only bring some extra action to the games but offer a chance to enhance you overall return on investment for this series. The following are our predictions for the top three money-makers for this year’s NBA Finals.

2012 NBA Finals - Series Correct Score

WagerWeb has opened the Thunder as the series favorite at -170 with Miami a +140 underdog so the breakdown of the odds for the series score is as follows. The one thing to keep in mind is that this series follows a 2-3-2 format with Oklahoma hosting the first two and last two games, if necessary.

Heat win 4-0  +1500           
Heat win 4-1  +500              
Heat win 4-2  +600              
Heat win 4-3  +450
Thunder win 4-0  +900
Thunder win 4-1  +600
Thunder win 4-2  +275
Thunder win 4-3  +225

If you look at the last 10 years on NBA Finals dating back to the 2001/2002 season, the series has gone the full seven games just twice. It has gone six games four times followed by five games twice with two four-game sweeps.

Looking at this series it is hard to see any team sweeping the other and with three straight games in Miami it is hard to see the Heat losing in five or less. The best value on the board is the Thunder in six at +275 given that they are the series favorite and have a strong home-court advantage with a 26-7 record in the regular season and an 8-0 record in the playoffs.

2012 NBA Finals Series Top Scorer

This is a great prop bet simply because you can almost automatically whittle the 16-player field down to two. Barring any unforeseen injury to either Miami’s LeBron James  at -135 or Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant at +110, one of these two players should be the top scorer in this series based primarily on how many points each has averaged so far this postseason.

James leads the Heat with 30.8 points a game and has not scored less than 19 points in all 18 playoff games. He has scored 30 or more in eight of his last 10 games. The next highest scorer for Miami is Dwyane Wade with an average of 22.9 points a game. His odds to win are +800.

Durant leads the Thunder with 27.8 points a game and has not scored less than 22 points in his 15 postseason games. He has breached the 30-point mark in five of his last nine games. The Thunder’s next highest scorer is Russell Westbrook with 21.7 points a game. His odds to finish as the top scorer in this series are +1200.

The safest bet would be James simply because he will probably have to score more for his team to win, but go with Kevin Durant because of the better value in the actual odds.

2012 NBA Finals - Total Games in Series

OVER 5.5    -250
UNDER 5.5  +175

Using the same logic that determined that the best value in the series odds is Thunder in six, common sense would tell you to take the ‘over’ in this wager. Unfortunately, the value in the odds is way out of skew, making this play far too risky in light of the potential loss verse return.
While you would not want to go heavy on this prop in either direction, the value in the odds makes the play on the ‘under’ the way to go.

If you assume that the Thunder win the first two games at home and lose Game 3 in Miami, then Game 4 becomes the pivotal contest in this series. Oklahoma City is a perfect 3-0 in Game 4s this postseason, winning two on the road and one at home. A 3-1 series lead would shift all the momentum in the Thunder’s favor to possibly steal another win on the road to end this series in five.

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