Two more second-round series get underway in the NBA tonight, with Cleveland in Detroit to kick off the East Semis, and the Lakers in Oklahoma City to kick off their series with the Thunder.

And so, what can we learn from their season series this year for player props? We’re going to look into the Cavaliers and Pistons series in today’s newsletter, and focus on other series in Thursday’s newsletter.

We’re going to look into both series below. You’ll also find our MLB Batter vs Pitcher data sheet, MLB Hot Bats from WallaBets, and select partner trends from our capper partners on X.

The Cavaliers and Pistons split the season series 2-2 this year. And yes, the series has James Harden, Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen & Ausar Thompson. But in our research into their season series, two players stood out: Donovan Mitchell and Jalen Duren.

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This season, Mitchell averaged 27.9/4.5/5.7. We only have a two-game sample size because he missed 2 of the 4 games against the Pistons this year, but in those 2 games, he averaged 32.5 points. The big thing for Mitchell against Detroit is that he’s really able to get good looks.

He averaged 20 field goal attempts per game this season, and in the two games against Detroit that did not see an uptick, he attempted 18 & 21. But he was able to hit 23 of the 39 shots across the two games, shooting 58% from the field, 10 points higher than his season average.

But there’s one other element to his games against the Pistons. This season, he’s averaging 5.8 free throw attempts. In the two games against Detroit, he had 8 and 9 free throw attempts. In games this year, attempting 8 or more free throws, his hit rate and average skyrocket.

In those 23 games with 8 or more attempts from the line, he’s averaging 31.6 points per game with a 78% hit rate.

Duren was really quite awful in round one, except for the last game.

Which version of Duren do we get tonight? Well, his regular season against the Pistons points us in one direction.

In the three games against the Cavs, he dominated Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley twice. In the first game in October, he had 8 points and 7 rebounds. But in the two most recent games head-to-head, he had 49 points & rebounds (33/16) and 38 points & rebounds (24/14).

In those two games, three pieces of criteria led to Duren’s big outings:

The biggest factor on that list is undoubtedly his free-throw attempts. This is how he splits with how often he gets to the line, and keep in mind he averages 5.9 free throw attempts.

When he gets to the line, he’s a much more effective player, and that’s what to keep an eye out for in the first game of this series.

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