NBA Playoffs 2023/24, NBA Finals, Game 5, Tuesday, 18.06.2024
While my friends and I are busy placing European Championship bets and waiting for the first big surprise of the tournament, I’m looking hopefully at what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic.
In addition to the Copa America, which starts soon, basketball fans there can currently enjoy the exciting NBA Finals.
The Mavs have successfully fended off the first of four match points against them, will the comeback continue tonight?
In my Celtics Mavericks tip, I speculate that the Texans will at least make it exciting
The Dallas Mavericks will not be “swept” in the 2024 NBA Finals after all, as they were able to tear the Celtics to shreds with a convincing 122-84 win in Dallas on Friday.
The Celtics still lead the best-of-seven series 3-1, but have now been dealt their first loss since May 9 – and what a loss it was!
Watch out: The 38-point victory marked the third clearest win by a team in the history of the NBA Finals.
Luka Doncic, incidentally, finished the game with a whopping 29 points for the Mavs, who led by 26 at halftime and never looked back from there.
The more important question, however, is whether the Texans can draw the motivation they need to make the greatest comeback of all time a reality…
Watch out: The Mavs’ success was also the product of a strong Kyrie Irving.
The talented ballhandler contributed 21 points to the Mavericks’ early lead, who had a shooting percentage of over 50% from the field by the end of the third quarter and held the Celtics to just 35 points in the first half.
Rookie Dereck Lively II, meanwhile, did an outstanding job as a substitute for Dallas, scoring 11 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. Lively even hit the first three-pointer of his NBA career in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, Boston hit just 14 of 41 three-point attempts in the entire game. Their tried-and-tested method from Games 1 to 3 was therefore not used this time.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who scored an incredible 61 points together in Game 3, combined for just 25 points this time with a shooting percentage of 7 out of 22 (15 from Tatum, 10 from Brown).
I was also extremely surprised by the Texans’ strong defensive performance this time.
Because Dallas couldn’t stop Boston from getting into the zone in the first three games, even if it was for their lives.
But in Game 4, it was suddenly a different story, as the Celtics could only score the aforementioned 35 points in the first half.
Meanwhile, one has to wonder if the C’s might be showing nerves after all? They have often been accused of not being able to withstand the pressure in crunch time against teams at eye level.
Jayson Tatum’s performance in the fourth game exemplified this trend. Despite the importance of the deciding game and the possibility of becoming the Finals MVP, Tatum struggled with fouls, ball losses and a poor return.
Although Boston is deep enough to win games without many points from Tatum, his inconsistent performance throughout the series shows that he hasn’t yet reached the next level like other Celtics legends in similar situations.
The curse is over, by the way! Because last Friday marked the first time in over three years that Irving was able to beat the Celtics!
He had been riding a 13-game losing streak dating back to the Brooklyn Nets’ Game 5 win over the Celtics in the first round of the 2021 playoffs!
Irving has played well below his standards in those games against Boston, and that was also the case in the first two games of this series. Anyway, I have a feeling that “AI” will be able to seamlessly build on the performance from Game 4 tonight.
What makes a basketball tip for Game 5 so easy in my eyes are the very one-sided Celtics Mavericks odds, which can be accessed in just about any sports betting app.
The BOS win odds of around 1.33 are simply not worth it, as I don’t think they sufficiently take into account the defeat suffered a few days ago.
Instead, I personally would rather trust the momentum on the side of the Mavericks and not turn my back on their underdog odds of around 3.25.
Conclusion: For me, a Celtics Mavericks bet on this game is very easy to make due to the situation on the markets.
Because with the acute odds differential, I simply trust that the “magic” from Game 4 has not suddenly fizzled out.
If the Texans play exactly the same way, it will be difficult for Boston to beat them, even if they now have the all-important home field advantage.
The bottom line is that I’m still including an additional condition with a HC bet to slightly hedge my bets.
My prediction: Dallas wins with handicap +6.5.
