Griffin Wong previews tonight’s game between Philadelphia 76ers and the Dallas Mavericks with his favorite player prop bets.

As the calendar turns to 2026, the future looks bright for both the Philadelphia 76ers and the Dallas Mavericks. Each team still has work to do in re-setting its focus on a new young core (for Dallas, Cooper Flagg, and for Philadelphia, the Tyrese Maxey-VJ Edgecombe guard duo), but both at least have a direction.

The teams will face off for the final time in the 2025-26 season (and the first in the 2026 calendar year) tonight at 8:30 p.m. at the American Airlines Center. With the exception of each team’s long-term injuries, the injury report is completely clean, though Joel Embiid is technically probable.

The 76ers are 2.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-135 on the Moneyline), with the point total set at 230.5. The Mavericks are +114 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ve detailed my three favorite prop bets for tonight’s battle of star rookies.

Cooper Flagg -7.5 Points vs. VJ Edgecombe (-107)

Any prop bet article about this matchup had to include the two rookies. Edgecombe has still been solid: though he’s quieted down some since his 34-point debut, he’s coming off of a 25-point performance against the Memphis Grizzlies in which he hit the game-winning three-pointer in overtime and has scored 20 or more points in five of his last seven games. Flagg is just more consistent on a game-to-game basis: while Edgecombe had back-to-back 10-point performances prior to his latest outburst and just a nine-point game on December 2, Flagg has had just one single-digit scoring game in his career and hasn’t scored fewer than 15 points since November 28.

To be fair, Philadelphia has the better defense overall; over the last month, the 76ers have ranked fourth in defensive rating and Dallas just 19th. However, much of that malaise is driven by the fact that the Mavericks have allowed at least 125 points in three of their last four games, two of which came without Anthony Davis, who is set to return from his adductor injury tonight. Plus, with Davis playing in nine of the team’s 13 games in December, Dallas allowed the seventh-lowest percentage at the rim, and Edgecombe has attempted more than four restricted-area tries per night while being the league’s least accurate high-volume finisher. Like the Mavericks, the 76ers allow lots of attempts in the restricted area, but Flagg has hit his layups at a rate 10 percentage points higher than Edgecombe’s.

Tyrese Maxey 4+ Three-Pointers Made (+113)

After a slight blip in three-point shooting efficiency last season (33.7%, the second-lowest mark of his career), Maxey’s shot has bounced back while his usage rate has remained high, as he’s canned 39.6% of his triples so far. His efficiency has gotten even better in December: across the month, he shot 42.2% from deep, making at least four threes in seven of his 10 games, and it’s not just a result of Embiid’s on-again, off-again presence: in all but two of those games, the Cameroonian played his regular minutes. Maxey is simply the most trustworthy option, even when Embiid, Paul George, and Edgecombe all play.

Meanwhile, much of Dallas’ defensive regression in December was a result of its allowing more wide-open threes. Across the month, the Mavericks allowed the seventh-most uncontested triples after conceding the second-fewest through the end of November, and it showed: through the end of November, Dallas allowed a league-low 11.0 made threes per game on 32.7% accuracy, but in December, those numbers ballooned to 12.9 makes and 34.6%. The Mavericks can’t bank on getting lucky against Maxey, who’s been the league’s second-best at generating uncontested looks and has knocked them down at a 45.8% clip. That accuracy is a career-high, but it’s not anomalous: he’s connected at a rate north of 40% in four of his last five seasons.

Anthony Davis 2+ Blocks (-113)

The last time he took the court, Davis rejected two Golden State Warriors shots in just 11 minutes of playing time, and all in all, he’s had two or more blocks in eight of his 16 starts this season. Though his 1.6-block average is actually a career low, so are his 29.9 minutes per game, and he’s expected to play up to 34 minutes in his return tonight. Plus, Davis has spent more time as the lone big this season than he has throughout most of his career, so in the long run, he should get more opportunities to contest shots.

Plus, five of the eight games in which he didn’t record two or more blocks came in battles against Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren, Nikola Jokić, and Alperen Şengün, and one more came in a game in which he left early due to injury. A healthy Embiid certainly falls into that superstar category, and it’s worth noting that the first time these teams met this season, Davis recorded only one block, but the more sustainable trend is that Philadelphia conceded the league’s fourth-most blocks in December. Maxey and Edgecombe lead the team in attempts at the rim, and both are physically slight. Maxey, Edgecombe, and Embiid all rank among the league’s top 40 in blocks against this season.