Prop Shop 2: Shane Battier OVER 8.5 Points

[EaglesPhan36]

Another heat check/gut play here. Battier has only gotten better than this number in 2 of the 5 games, both were in Houston though - site of tonight's Game 6. Reasoning here for me, Portland has made it clear that they think the key to winning is keeping the ball out of Yao's hands. I fully expect the Blazers to bring a 2nd defender when needed on Yao and that should open up opportunities for Houston's shooters. That leads us to Mr.Battier. I'm gonna make this plain and simple.

The magic number is 8.

Battier has gotten up more than 8 shots twice in this series, finishing both games in double figures. Both games coming in Houston. During the regular season when hoisting up 8 shots or more, he surpassed the total here of 8.5 on 12 of 15 occassions. Also throw in that Von Wafer is out for the Rockets tonight and that means the bench gets thinner and outside of getting into foul trouble, Battier should be playing 40 or more minutes again as he has in the last 3 games. THat means more opportunities & I think a shot to get this one.

Let's cook the books one more time tonight.

[The_Kid]

Missed it by a bucket. Dumb Artest just had to keep chucking 3 pointers.

Get'em next time, EP. Oh yeah, we have a Game 7 so that means another 3 PT prop!

[theplagy]

LOL looks like another over for game 7!

but would this 3 OT become a factor? let see...

[EaglesPhan36]

I'm just waiting to see what number the books put Total 3 pointers at for that Game 7. They have pretty much kept it at 12.5 or 13 the entire series, so I wouldn't expect that to change for Game 7. Last night was a perfect example of why I like this wager so much though - you had two hot shooters, Allen & Salmons, that did all the work. That's a threat in every game this series. Fatigue might be something to consider, but look at Ray Allen, dude played 56 minutes and still was money when they needed to tie the game late in the OTs.

The Battier one, the guy is too unselfish sometimes. He's shooting almost 39% from 3 for his career, but he always tries to get someone else the ball. The whole magic number theory for that one I think was right on, he had 6 shots. If he gets two more, pretty sure he bangs one home. Oh well, that's why I play these "heat check" props at about half my normal unit size for the ones I really like. That way I still take home a profit for the day if the big ones hit & these small ones lose.