5 Best NBA Bets and Player Props for Sunday 12/29/24

The 82-game NBA regular season offers us a wide variety of betting options, including point spreads, moneylines, and totals. The Association features 1,230 regular season games, which can make sifting through the odds an overwhelming task.

However, various advanced statistics can help narrow the choices. numberFire's NBA power rankings and daily NBA projections paired with advanced stats from the NBA can help give the inside track to quality bets.

While utilizing some of the mentioned tools, which NBA odds from FanDuel Sportsbook look like the best bets today?

Please note lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. All injury news comes from the NBA's official injury report.

Today's Best NBA Bets and Player Props

Atlanta Hawks at Toronto Raptors

Raptors Over 119.5 Points (-115)
RJ Barrett Over 1.5 Threes Made (-128)

We should see a shootout in the Six tonight.

The Atlanta Hawks and Toronto Raptors are top-six squads in pace, increasing to top-three squads in tempo over every team's respective last 10 games. Defensive also isn't ideal here; Toronto has the league's fifth-worst defensive rating (116.3 DRTG) as Atlanta has settled into the middle of the pack (113.5 DRTG).

Playing a physical game yesterday against the Miami Heat and then traveling all the way to Toronto from Atlanta is a really suboptimal situation. That's why I'll stick to just Toronto's half of the total, benefitting from tired legs on the Hawks' side.

Still giving up approximately a billion points themselves, the Raps have topped 119 points in all five games this season against top-five squads in pace. They seem primed to be in the 120s again on Sunday.

One of the ways they could get there is off the left hand of RJ Barrett.

Barrett and Scottie Barnes share defacto point guard duties, for the Raptors are without a true one at the moment, and that's a good spot to be against Atlanta if you shoot threes. The Hawks have given up 41.6 three-point attempts per game (most in the NBA) in addition to the most made threes per game to both point guards (4.2) and shooting guards (4.0).

Any way you slice it, the Hawks are an elite matchup for triples. This line is peculiar when Barrett has canned multiple triples in six of nine December games.

Our daily NBA projections have got Barrett projected for 2.2 threes made in this one.

Indiana Pacers at Boston Celtics

Under 233.5 Points (-110)

At the moment, these two teams probably don't deserve a shootout moniker.

The Indiana Pacers' season-long metrics show a team that's 7th in pace but 23rd in defensive rating. Especially as they've struggled to a 110.6 offensive rating (ORTG) on the road, they've evolved their play style to just rank 17th and 15th in those categories, respectively, over their last 10 games.

Meanwhile, the mighty Boston Celtics are, as usual, a pretty neutral matchup for totals. Their elite ORTG (119.6) and DRTG (109.7) comes with the league's 21st-ranked pace. They can light it up from three, but unless they're scorching, a total in the 230s is quite ambitious.

Indiana's recent shifts -- and general road struggles -- lead me to an under here. The Pacers have a 50.0% over rate on the road that is a whopping 69.2% at home.

San Antonio Spurs at Minnesota Timberwolves

Spurs +7 (-110)
Rudy Gobert Over 10.5 Points (-113)

The San Antonio Spurs can compete with anyone when Victor Wembanyama is on, so this is a huge number against a Minnesota Timberwolves team we know is flawed.

On equal rest and with no rotation players on the injury report, this line makes minimal sense. Minnesota's +2.0 net rating (NRTG) doesn't tower over San Antonio's (-1.2). The Spurs, overall, have a 14-12 straight up (SU) record and +0.6 NRTG in games where Wemby has played.

Meanwhile, this could be oddsmakers continuing to overvalue the Wolves off last year's playoff run. They're 13-17 against the spread (ATS), which is the ninth-worst mark in the Association.

Three of the Wolves' last four games have been within this margin, and they haven't topped 115 points in any of them. A lower-scoring affair only ups the incentive to take the margin.

However, I am going to look to the Minnesota side and add a prop.

This game probably means quite a bit to Rudy Gobert opposite his fellow Frenchman. He's scored 13.6 points per game (PPG) in his last five games against Wemby and the Spurs, and he's amassed double-digit points in all of them.

Notably, San Antonio uses Wemby in help defense more than on-ball defense against centers, allowing potential putbacks and paint points for Gobert. The Spurs allow the eighth-most points per game to centers (23.6) as a result.

We've got Gobert projected for 11.9 points in this one, meaning we'd set this over closer to -179. It's a bit low when he's shown the aggressiveness to score in this particular matchup.

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.