Some people like to sweat out a bet for 48 hard minutes – others like immediate satisfaction. Count us as being in the latter, which is why we like to get down with NBA first scorer props. And we’ve decided to pass that knowledge on to you with our first scorer bets for October 31. Go here for NBA Championship odds.
Of course, there are plenty out there taking blind guesses at this stuff. It’s easy to pick the most popular player or look at what happened in the last game. However, we spent the time pouring through the analytics to make sure that we give you the best odds to stay in the green on these first scorer props for October 31.
Come check out what we have cooked up for this slate of games.
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NBA First Scorer Props – October 31
Houston Rockets vs. Dallas Mavericks
Tipoff – 8:30 pm EST
American Airlines Center – Dallas, TX
Broadcast – NBA TV
The tip and first bucket data points in a pretty clear direction here. In four attempts this year, Mavericks’ center Daniel Gafford has won just a single tip. That’s in line with the type of numbers he was putting up last year when he got 38.6% of the tips. What’s worse for the Mavericks is that, thanks to starting without the ball in most games, they have yet to score first in a game. They are currently just one of two teams who haven’t.
On the other side, Alperen Sengun has looked a lot better on the tip this year. He wasn’t great last year – just 46.7% in 2023-24 – but he was much better than Gafford. This year he has started off right with two wins in three tries. Additionally, it’s helping the Rockets, who now have three first scores in four tries. Those discrepancies make it easy to tail someone on the Rockets.
With the three first buckets for the Rockets on the year, they also have three different first point scorers. Jabari Smith Jr, Alperen Sengun, and Dillon Brooks have all gotten on the board. For Thursday, I’m going to play that it goes four-for-four and grab a new name. Jalen Green has appeared in the play log during the first four shots in three of four games. He’s getting the rock early, even if he hasn’t gotten that opening look yet. I expect him to get one against the Mavericks here.
First Scorer Bet for October 31: Jalen Green (+500)
Phoenix Suns vs. Los Angeles Clippers
Tipoff – 10:30 pm EST
Intuit Dome – Inglewood, CA
Broadcast – NBA TV
With such a small sample size, it’s good to look to last year’s data when looking for trends to follow. The Suns’ Jusuf Nurkic was one of the better tip guys during last season. He won 69.6% of all the tips he was in and Phoenix was a well above average team in scoring first. On the other side, few were as bad as Ivica Zubac on the tip. He won just 29.2% of his tips and had the Clippers scoring first just over a thrid of the time. So while the early 2024-25 data is close between these two teams, this should be a Suns play all day.
While the sharpshooters are typically the story for the Suns, I’m going inside with them on Thursday. Yusuf Nurkic has been getting a lot of early game action. He took the first shot in their last game with the Lakers – although it was blocked. The game before that, he took two of their first three shots. In addition, I like how often he gets to the the line – getting there at least eight times in half of the games. One of those games were against these vary Clippers and Ivica Zubac – who fouled out of that game trying to contain Nurkic.
First Scorer Bet for October 31: Yusuf Nurkic (+1100)
If you’d like even more info to help make your first scorer bets for October 31, check out the NBA Gambling Podcast. They’re dropping episodes five days a week to make you the smartest guy/gal at the bar.
