Thursday Picks 5/22/2025

Thursday Picks (5/22/2025)

Today’s the first day of the rest of our lives, so you know what that means…it’s time to make some bets for the day. We have a full slate of games for the day, as all of the sports have matches today. The MLB has a large slate with a handful of games starting before dinner time, NHL has Game 2 of the East Finals between the Florida Panthers and the Carolina Hurricanes, the NBA has Game 2 of the WCF (Timberwolves @ Thunder), and Caitlin Clark is back in action tonight. Long story short, there’s plenty of games to sprinkle some US currency on.

My gameplan for today is to spread it out and show love to all the leagues. After watching Caitlin Clark go bananas in her first two games of the season, I can’t just sit on my hands with her returning to action today. She put up a triple-double in her 2025 debut, and then followed that with a 27pt game. Needless to say, I’m rocking with the hot hand here (and the greatest WNBA basketball player of all time) and taking Caitlin Clark o20.5pts in her matchup in Atlanta against the Dream. In their last game, which was also against the Atlanta Dream, Brionna Jones went crazy on the boards and also leads her team in rebounds at 11.5 RPG, so I’m taking Jones o7.5 rebounds tonight. Along with those props, I’m taking the Fever moneyline. Also, I have Angel Reese u2.5 assists, simply because she’s a terrible facilitator and the Chicago Sky are not very good.

For Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, most of my picks are siding with the Timberwolves. OKC has gotten off to slow starts for the last four of their playoff matchups, and the Timberwolves got off to a quick start to begin Game 1 of this series. With that being said, I’m taking the Timberwolves to cover +2.5 in the 1st Quarter. For props, I really like Anthony Edwards o11.5 rebounds + assists and Julius Randle o17.5pts. Ant didn’t have a fantastic showing in Game 1, so I expect him to turn it up a notch tonight in Game 2, but also expect him to facilitate a little better and continue to rip boards down when they’re needed most. He could potentially put up 15-17 rebounds + assists tonight, so I think 11.5 is a gimme. Julius Randle has been fairly consistent in these playoffs games and has been a great co-pilot/right-hand man to Anthony Edwards for Minnesota, so I expect him to have another decent offensive game. They're both needed in a big way if they want to scrape a win against this OKC team, who has proven to be dominant on the defensive side of the ball.

I haven’t been too in-touch with the NHL playoffs during this round, but I do like the Carolina Hurricanes moneyline at home for Game 2 against the Florida Panthers tonight. This pick is mainly because I’m going against Nicky Smokes. Nothing more, nothing less.

To finish off the slate of games for today that I’m going to be sprinkling on, I’m going to roll with the Detroit Tigers moneyline. Detroit is currently the top team in the MLB with a 33-17 record and is tied for the best record at home. Today, the Cleveland Guardians have to travel to Detroit and the Tigers are starting Jack Flaherty, who I’m a fan of. Dude slings it. Fairly simple logic with that pick.

Anyways, those are my picks for the day and a little bit of my arm-chair analysis. Let’s make some money!