{"id":138365,"date":"2025-05-08T07:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=138365"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:39:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T02:39:53","slug":"pacers-cavs-player-props-game-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/05\/08\/pacers-cavs-player-props-game-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacers-Cavs Player Props Bettors Should Consider For Game 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/05\/06\/game-2-cavs-vs-pacers-player-props\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Eastern Conference semifinals <\/a>continue as the Cleveland Cavaliers travel to Indianapolis for Game 3 against the Indiana Pacers. After the Pacers took a surprising 2-0 lead with back-to-back wins on Cleveland\u2019s home court, the Cavaliers face a must-win situation to keep their championship hopes alive. Both teams have shown they can score in bunches, with the game expected to be fast-paced and high-scoring. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mitchdo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donovan Mitchell<\/a> has been the driving force for Cleveland, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/halibty01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> has shown up big for Indiana, making this matchup especially exciting. The Cavaliers are dealing with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/05\/02\/darius-garlands-injury-status\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">some crucial injuries<\/a>, making this series extremely hard to predict. With momentum on the Pacers\u2019 side and the Cavaliers eager to respond, Game 3 should be an epic showdown. Let\u2019s look at the best Pacers-Cavs player props to determine the best bets for Game 3.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Pacers-Cavs Player Props Bettors Should Consider For Game 3<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">*All Pacers vs Cavaliers odds are courtesy of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bovada<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as of Wednesday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Donovan Mitchell: Over 29.5 points (-109)<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_138417\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-138417\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/05\/USATSI_26106998_168404824_lowres-scaled.jpg\" target=\"_self\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-138417\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/05\/USATSI_26106998_168404824_lowres-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/05\/USATSI_26106998_168404824_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/05\/USATSI_26106998_168404824_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/05\/USATSI_26106998_168404824_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/05\/USATSI_26106998_168404824_lowres-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/05\/USATSI_26106998_168404824_lowres-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/05\/USATSI_26106998_168404824_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/05\/USATSI_26106998_168404824_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-138417\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">May 6, 2025; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) reacts in the first quarter against the Indiana Pacers during game two of the second round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Rocket Arena. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mitchell has been a scoring machine over the first two games of this series. He scored 33 points in Game 1 and had a 48-point explosion in Game 2. The Cavaliers have needed his offensive dominance to help support an offense that is missing some of its key contributors. The Cavaliers are praying that some of those contributors can return for Game 3, but Mitchell will continue to be the offensive workhorse for the Cavs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mitchell has notched at least 30 points in every playoff game but two, exceeding his points projection line in four of his last six games. Mitchell was even able to reach his big Game 1 and Game 2 scoring numbers while shooting a combined 2-of-18 from three. We think Mitchell\u2019s three-point shot will regress to his average, and he will continue to get up tons of looks in Game 3.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Aaron Nesmith: Over 12.5 points (-110)<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is probably the most interesting Pacers-Cavs player props for Game 3. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nesmiaa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aaron Nesmith<\/a> may not be the most well-known name, but he is a key cog for the Pacers. He has also been essential to the Pacers&#8217; playoff success so far. Besides Game 1 against the Bucks when Nesmith only scored seven points, he has been scoring a lot and efficiently all playoffs long.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the playoffs, Nesmith has been averaging 16.3 points. He hasn\u2019t scored less than 13 points other than in Game 1 against Milwaukee. We are locking in Nesmith for at least 13 points in Game 3 as one of our best prop bets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Tyrese Haliburton: Over 4.5 rebounds (+118)<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is another line we think is simply too low. Haliburton has been incredible during these playoffs, and part of that strong play has been his contributions on the glass. Haliburton has notched at least five rebounds in every playoff game but one. In Game 2 against the Cavs, he grabbed nine boards.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Haliburton only averages 3.5 rebounds per game in the regular season. However, his playoff performances have been much better. He is averaging <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">6.3 rebounds a game<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> these playoffs and averaged 4.8 per game last year. Bet on another big rebounding night for Haliburton in Game 3.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Featured image: \u00a9 David Richard-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Eastern Conference semifinals continue as the Cleveland Cavaliers travel to Indianapolis for Game 3 against the Indiana Pacers. After the Pacers took a surprising 2-0 lead with back-to-back wins on Cleveland\u2019s home court, the Cavaliers face a must-win situation to keep their championship hopes alive. Both teams have shown they can score in bunches, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":138416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,49087,9,11,62],"tags":[2832,900,2607],"class_list":["post-138365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-basketball-betting","category-cavaliers","category-pacers","category-nba","tag-aaron-nesmith","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-tyrese-haliburton"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138365"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180921,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138365\/revisions\/180921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}