The sportsbook odds for a Boston-Miami Eastern Conference playoff series would have been heavily tilted in favor of the Celtics at the beginning of the season. Now, the NBA betting landscape is a little different, but the question is this: “Has the calculus changed enough that the Miami Heat can be favored in this series?” It’s a topic worth discussing.
Eastern Conference First Round: Miami vs. Boston
Series begins Saturday, April 17
Bookmaker Odds: No line (as of yet)
In any discussion centering around sports betting, one can’t rely solely on the reputation of a given team. The Boston Celtics finished 50-32 in 2010, their worst regular-season record in the past three NBA campaigns. Coach Doc Rivers has recently sent some signals that he might step down, giving his team an unneeded distraction at playoff time. Perhaps this might not make sense to some people, but when one realizes that stars Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett both missed over 10 games this season due to injuries, and that Garnett is averaging just under 30 minutes a game because of his balky knees, it’s a lot more understandable to see why Rivers might duck out of Beantown. The Celtics are simply a lot older and far more creaky than they were during their 2008 championship run. Only Rajon Rondo – who is rounding into his prime years – is playing appreciably better now than he did in 2008, and even in that title season, Rondo was pretty darn good.
An online sports betting expert is surely aware of the fact that Boston finished the regular season by losing seven of its last 10 games. It’s true that some of these losses were due to a desire to sit Pierce and Garnett in advance of the playoffs, but it also needs to be said that Boston had something to gain during the last couple weeks of regular-season play. The Celtics should have wanted to avoid Cleveland in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs; Boston was shorthanded in last year’s playoffs and still almost found a way to knock off Orlando, so the C’s had to have felt that the No. 3 seed possessed an appreciable degree of value. It would have been far better to draw Orlando in the second round and then see about the Cavs in the Eastern Conference finals.
Evidently, Boston just couldn’t get the job done.
The 3-7 stretch to close the season showed that the Celtics simply can’t flip the “on” switch anymore. Rasheed Wallace has been a total bust for this team, averaging only four rebounds per game and scoring a basket for the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday night. Glen “Big Baby” Davis is averaging just 6.3 points per game and has not become the presence he needs to be on this team.
The only thing saving Boston in this series is the fact that the Miami Heat are still, for the most part, a one-man team. Michael Beasley occasionally does something special, but the NBA is well aware that if you take Dwyane Wade out of the equation in South Florida, the Heat would not even sniff the NBA postseason. Boston does not figure to get past the second round of the playoffs, but only because of Miami’s limitations, the Celtics should still be favored to escape the first round… but in six or seven difficult games.
Online basketball betting pick: Boston in seven games.
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