Bet on Wembanyama’s wings to stifle ‘choking tower’

If the Spurs put the finishing touches on the Timberwolves this Friday night in Minneapolis, there’s a good chance 7-foot-4 superstar Victor Wembanyama will be the main character. Wembanyama is averaging 20 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks per game in this series and those numbers are skewed because the Frenchman threw an elbow on Sunday and was ejected after just 12 minutes. Armed with an 8-foot wingspan, Wembanyama plays defense like a pterodactyl, making life extremely difficult for opposing bigs. Especially those who aren’t known for scoring. This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you register or place a bet, FOX Sports may be compensated. Learn more about sports betting on FOX Sports. I think one of the best bets on the board Friday is taking Minnesota center stalwart Rudy Gobert under 6.5 (-118). Gobert is essentially the Wolves’ seventh scoring option behind Anthony Edwards, Julius Randle, Jaden McDaniels, Ayo Dosunmu, Naz Reid and Terrence Shannon Jr. Don’t expect that to suddenly change in a must-win game. Aside from the occasional alley-oop, Minnesota doesn’t run much action for Gobert. He doesn’t have a mid-range jumper, rarely looks for his own shot and shoots at an abysmal rate of 47% from the free throw line in the series. No one confuses him with Patrick Ewing or Hakeem Olajuwon. “Minnesota doesn’t look like Gobert when Wemby is there,” one basketball bettor told me. “They are not offensive through him and some of their best lineups are ones where [head coach Chris Finch] goes small and fast. “Don’t be surprised if Edwards takes 30 shots.” It also seems easy to bet over 6.5 on a guy who averaged eight points per game in the series and averaged 11 points per game in the regular season. Thanks, but no thanks. Elsewhere, the Thunder are a perfect 8-0 in the playoffs with sweeps against the Suns and Lakers – and they still look bored. I wrote last week about the possibility of playing OKC with other futures and if you haven’t made any of those bets yet, the math still pays off. BetMGM has the Thunder at -165 to win the title and DraftKings is a bit higher at -170. The price hasn’t changed much since everyone knew OKC would send the Lakers home for the summer, but other sportsbooks are sitting at -190 and -200. Please make sure you are shopping at the correct store. It’s looking more and more like Jalen Williams will return soon as well. Oklahoma City’s second-leading scorer suffered a minor hamstring strain on April 22, but by the Western Conference finals, Williams will have gone through almost a full month of rehab and recovery. What are you waiting for?