8:00 PM EST, ESPN – Line: Celtics -10.5, Over/Under: 221.5
We’ve now come to the NBA’s final four, as the Eastern Conference Finals kick off the penultimate round of the Playoffs in Beantown, where the top-seeded Boston Celtics play host to the surprising sixth-seeded Indiana Pacers, in this Game One from TD Garden. My, oh my, what a renaissance this has been for the Pacers (47-35, 6th in Eastern Conference), who may be the unlikeliest of participants at this stage of the postseason. Indeed, this was a peculiar team throughout the campaign, leading the Association in points (120.2), field goal percentage (50.7%), and assists (30.8), thanks in large part to their furious pace (101.7 possessions per 48 minutes), the playmaking nous of (All-Star Point Guard) Tyrese Haliburton, and a bench mob that was the highest-scoring unit in the league (46.6). Furthermore, there has been extra attention paid to Indiana over the past five months, who were a surprise finalist in the inaugural In-Season Tournament, hosts of All-Star Weekend, and a shock buyer at the Trade Deadline, acquiring the services of (veteran Forward) Pascal Siakam in a deal with the Raptors. While there was no way of knowing it then, hindsight has revealed a team that was being primed for postseason success, particularly when you consider the path that has been laid before them. Did Indy benefit greatly from drawing a wounded Bucks team in the first-round? Absolutely, but we must remember that they OWNED Milwaukee in the regular season, beating them FIVE times in six encounters en route to eliminating them in six games. Were they fortunate that the Knicks literally ran out of healthy bodies in the Eastern Semifinals? Sure, but (Head Coach) Rick Carlisle’s charges deserve credit from rallying back from a 3-2 deficit and OBLITERATING New York in Games Six and Seven by a combined thirty-four points. This was vintage Pacers, folks, who in those two contests shot 60.0% from the field, including 44.0% from beyond the arc, with 40.0 assists in comparison to committing just 10.0 turnovers, while finally tempering their opponent’s relentless pressure on the offensive glass (-0.5). Between the two, Sunday’s eye-opening 130-109 triumph at Madison Square Garden was nothing short of a revelation, as the visitors finally won a game on the road in this series, shooting an insane 67.1% overall, the highest percentage ever posted in a Game Seven. Six different players scored in double-figures, including three with 20+ points, led by Haliburton (pictured below) with twenty-six points on 10-of-17 shooting (58.8%) and a team-high 6-of-12 from downtown (50.0%), while Siakam and (young Guard) Andrew Nembhard added twenty points apiece. Furthermore, (unheralded Guard) T.J. McConnell added twelve points and seven assists off the bench.
From a betting perspective, the public appears to be swaying to the side of the Pacers following their blistering shooting performance in Sunday’s finale at MSG, with roughly 58% of all wagers placed on tonight’s opener riding on the visitors receiving 10+ points. Indiana has been a solid bet against the spread this season, posting a 51-42-2 record in that regard, equating to a net profit of 4.36 units. Carlisle’s troops have been double-digit underdogs on just three occasions this season, losing each of them straight-up, while managing to cover one of them, a 109-117 defeat at the (reigning NBA Champion) Nuggets back on January 14th. Of course, one of those games also came against the Celtics, who utterly ANNIHILATED them in a 104-155 drubbing at TD Garden as a 13.5-point favorite. With that being said, Indy is 3-2 against the spread versus Boston this season, including two outright victories, the most notable being a 133-131 thriller to book passage to the semifinals of the aforementioned In-Season Tournament. We’ve talked at length about how prolific this group is offensively, but the numbers suggest that we should be wary of putting too much faith in them after such an explosion; this is a team that have failed to cover SIX consecutive games after scoring 125+ points in the previous contest, which is the case tonight. In their five meetings during the regular season, Indiana averaged 116.8 points on 46.3% shooting, though just 31.8% from three, where they were outscored by a margin of 11.4 points. Haliburton featured in four of those affairs, posting 15.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 9.0 assists, despite netting 41.1% of his total shots and 32.1% of his treys. Historically, the Pacers find themselves in the Eastern Conference Finals for the ninth time in franchise history, though this is generally the point of the Playoffs where they have capitulated, with just one series victory in their previous eight tries. This series marks the first time that Indiana has progressed to the ECF since making back-to-back appearances in 2013 and 2014, both of which ended in defeat at the hands of the (reigning NBA Champion) Heat.
Meanwhile, they say that you can only play the teams in front of you, which is a notion that also applies to the Celtics (64-18, 1st in Eastern Conference), who have reached this point relatively unopposed. After finishing with the best record in the Association by a wide margin, Boston handled their business in the first two rounds of the Playoffs, disposing of both Miami and Cleveland in five games apiece. Granted, both opponents were without significant pieces of their respective puzzles, but credit (Head Coach) Joe Mazzulla’s troops for doing what they were supposed to do without wasting much time along the way. This is a team that ranked second in points for (120.6) and fifth in points allowed (109.2), while posting the best net rating in the league (+11.6) and haven’t been far off those figures in the postseason; though the games haven’t been as high scoring, which is to be expected in the Playoffs, the shamrocks have beaten the opposition by an average of 11.4 points per contest, shooting a solid 48.0% from the field and 37.7% from beyond the arc, while yielding 44.9% shooting overall and 33.8% from downtown. Unlike in postseason’s past, they have been taking excellent care of the basketball to boot, committing just 10.1 turnovers per game, which is crucial when these affairs are largely decided in the halfcourt. With that being said, there is a sense that we have yet to the best of these Celtics for a variety of reasons. First, they have continued their perplexing trend of playing better on the road than they have at the friendly confines of TD Garden, dropping Game Two of each of the previous series. Second, they are far from healthy with the absence of a certain Latvian International (much more on him in a bit) being the case for the entirety of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Lastly, (All-NBA Forward) Jayson Tatum hasn’t quite lived up to his billing in this postseason. No player on this roster has improved as much as Tatum (pictured below) has over the past few seasons, earning All-NBA First Team honors in each of the past two campaigns, though there have been moments in each of the last two playoff runs where he has failed to deliver; he was nothing short of disappointing during the 2022 NBA Finals in which the Warriors relegated him to 36.7% shooting and nearly four turnovers per game, while last May’s upset in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Heat featured sub-40% shooting in both Games Six and Seven, including a mere fourteen points in a 19-point blowout loss in the finale at the Garden. This current postseason run has seen Tatum averaging 24.3 points on a modest 43.0% shooting and a dismal 28.1% from three, though he has contributed to a wealth of other areas, supplementing his shooting with just over seven free-throws per game, along with 10.4 rebounds, 5.8 assists, and 1.0 steal. Perhaps a meeting with the Pacers will bring him back to baseline; in four regular season encounters, the 26-year-old has torched Indiana for 32.5 points on an insane 57.8% shooting and 17-of-35 from long range (48.6%), along with 11.0 boards and 5.8 dimes.
From a betting perspective, it feels as if the public has forgotten about the Celtics in part to their lengthy time off, as approximately 41% of all money wagered upon this Game One resides with the team clad in green. At this point, Boston has racked up an NBA-best SEVENTY-TWO straight-up wins (including Playoffs), though they have been a very different story against the spread, where they have earned a 47-41-4 mark, equating to a net profit of just 1.73 units. Of course, this disparity can be chalked up to being a heavy favorite in so many of their contests this season; Mazzulla’s troops have been favored by 10+ points on FORTY occasions thus far, parlaying to a 21-17-2 record against the spread. Simply put, no matter how much more formidable a team is in comparison to the rest of the league, it is difficult to win every game by double-digits, with the fact that they even managed to author a +.500 record along the way all the more impressive. With that being said, keep an eye on that line, folks; after initially opening at -13.5 points, it moved all the way down to 10.5, which significant because the shamrocks are 4-0-1 versus the spread in their last five games featuring a line between 5.0-10.5 points. Furthermore, seven of their ten playoff games have been as favorites of at least 10.5 points, covering four of them as a result. As for this matchup with the Pacers, they are just 3-7 against the spread in their last ten meetings as favorite and 5-5 in their past ten encounters in Beantown. On the injury front, we will have to wait and see if (veteran Center) Kristaps Porzingis will be returning at any point in this series. The towering Latvian strained his right soleus, which for those who unfamiliar is dangerously close to his Achilles, late in their first-round conquest of Miami and thus missed the entirety of the Eastern Semifinals. His ability to drag opposing bigs out of the paint with his shooting, while punishing mismatches on switches has been a huge component of their offensive improvement this season, while his rim protection is a welcome commodity to boot. Historically, the Celtics are appearing in their NBA record THIRTY-NINTH Eastern Conference Finals, which has been a very comfortable spot for them, winning TWENTY-TWO of them along the way. However, this is their sixth appearance in the ECF over the last eight years and they’ve moved on to the NBA Finals just once in that period.
Projected Outcome: Celtics 126, Pacers 114
