Griffin Wong previews tonight’s game between Boston Celtics and the Utah Jazz with his favorite player prop bets.

Clearly, at 12-19 with the league’s fourth-worst net rating, the Utah Jazz aren’t title contenders. However, the Jazz are coming off of back-to-back wins against teams who probably do fall into that category, in the East’s No. 1-seeded Detroit Pistons and the West’s No. 2-seeded San Antonio Spurs.

Tonight, Utah will have its third consecutive test against a strong team when it welcomes to the Boston Celtics to the Delta Center at 9 p.m. ET. The Celtics probably don’t qualify as contenders this season, unless Jayson Tatum returns early from the torn Achilles tendon that he suffered in the 2025 playoffs, but they’re still a top-three seed in the East and should prove a significant challenge for the young Jazz.

Utah will sit Kevin Love (rest), Ace Bailey (hip), and a few guys who are out with long-term injuries, with Keyonte George questionable, and Boston has a completely clean injury report besides the aforementioned Tatum and little-used bench piece Chris Boucher (personal).

The Celtics are 8.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-290 on the Moneyline), with the point total set at 242.5. The Jazz are +235 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ve detailed my three favorite prop bets for tonight’s inter-conference matchup.

Jaylen Brown 35+ Points (+152)

If there were ever any questions about Brown’s ability to step up as a No. 1 option in the absence of Tatum, he has answered them with force this season, scoring 30 or more points in 12 of his last 13 games (including at least 35 on four separate occasions) and averaging an impressive 32.5 points per game on 51-40-78 shooting splits across that span. As a result of his tremendous play, Boston has been winning, going 9-4 in those 13 contests. He has paired a career-high usage rate with a career-high true shooting percentage, and though he has the second-worst efficiency of the nine players who have played at least 20 games and at least 30 minutes per game with a usage rate north of 30%, it’s hardly a disappointment given the other eight players on the list.

Plus, the Jazz’s recent competitiveness hasn’t come from their defense. Before holding the Spurs to 114 points on Saturday, Utah had conceded 125 or more points in nine consecutive games, tying the 1963-64 New York Knicks for the longest such streak in NBA history. All in all, over the last month, the Jazz have had the league’s sixth-best offense and its worst defense, which is a great combination for Brown: Utah should score enough to keep Brown in the game, but not offer him much resistance. The Jazz have allowed the third-highest field goal percentage from two-point range, and Brown leads the league in two-point attempts per game. He had 36 points the previous time these teams faced off, on November 3.

Jusuf Nurkić 1+ Three-Pointer Made (+113)

Nurkić wasn’t expected to be Utah’s starting center when he was acquired from the Charlotte Hornets over the summer, given that he started in just nine of his 26 appearances in Charlotte while backing up Mark Williams. However, Walker Kessler was shut down for the season after just five games because of a shoulder injury, thrusting the Bosnian Beast back into the starting lineup, and in 23 starts, he’s delivered, averaging 9.7 points, 10.0 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game while shooting 11-for-33 (33.3%) from beyond the arc. Nurkić was never much of a threat from three-point range until the 2022-23 season, but he’s hit at least one three in four of his last five games, including a two-for-five performance in the win over San Antonio.

The Celtics, meanwhile, both live and die by the three on both ends of the ball. Not only do they attempt the third-most threes in the league, they also concede the ninth-most tries, and they’re bound to allow more than usual tonight with the Jazz playing at the league’s fourth-fastest pace. As a result, they’ve allowed an above-average number of wide-open threes, which account for nearly all of Nurkić’s attempts. Plus, since Boston is one of the league’s better rim-protecting teams (allowing the fewest restricted-area attempts and the 10th-lowest percentage), Nurkić might be incentivized to drag Neemias Queta out to the perimeter by hitting a three. In turn, that would open up back-door cut opportunities for his teammate Lauri Markkanen, who ranks fourth by the NBA’s new off-ball interior gravity metric.

Derrick White 6+ Assists (-112)

Since the Celtics settled on their current starting lineup — White, Brown, Queta, Payton Pritchard, and Jordan Walsh — on November 5, White has emerged as the secondary ball-handler behind Brown. Despite Pritchard averaging more assists overall (5.2 vs. White’s 5.1), White has out-assisted him, 5.5-5.1, since the lineup change, and he’s had six or more assists nine times, including three times in his last five games. He’s also arguably gotten unlucky, as Pritchard has a higher assist-to-pass percentage than he does. Plus, since White has the lowest true shooting percentage among Boston’s starting five, it makes sense that his passes would be more likely to lead to assists.

It’s unsurprising given that it has allowed the most points, but Utah has also conceded the most assists per game, giving up 1.2 more per game than the next-worst team in December. Across its 11 games this month, it has allowed 17 different ball-handlers to rack up at least six assists (1.55 per game), so White doesn’t even have to be the Celtics’ leading playmaker to dish out six dimes. Plus, 2.3 of the 3.3 shots that Pritchard attempts off of passes from White are threes, and those are more likely to be uncontested tonight, given that the Jazz have allowed the league’s second-most wide-open triples this season. Given Pritchard’s shooting talent, White’s passes to him are almost guaranteed to lead to at least one assist, and Utah’s weak rim protection should guarantee him another one on his passes to Queta.