NBA Expert Tips and Best Bets | May 24

After a thrilling Game 1 which saw a Jaylen Brown three send the game to overtime and ultimately resulted in a Celtics victory, the Eastern Conference Finals will continue on Friday with part two of Boston’s two-game opening home stand. The Pacers will be desperate to level the series, but after playing so well and still falling short they will have their work cut out doing that. But despite the loss, the plucky visitors showed that they can match it with their far more highly fancied opposition on their day. Below, we take a look at three of the best bets for the much-anticipated game. 

Over 224.5 total match points @ $1.88 | GetSetBet 

The Pacers have been a very high scoring team all year, with their offence focused on getting to their shot up as quickly as possible and their defence allowing plenty of open looks close to the rim. That was all pretty evident in Game 1, which flew past the over set by NBA betting sites for this game. That one ended up 133-128 for 261 total match points, though we can cancel out a few of those given that the game went to overtime. Still, at the end of four quarters the score was tied at 117 apiece for a total of 234, still ten over the total set for this one. More important than just the score in one individual game, however, is the manner in which those points game. Often a game can be significantly more high or low scoring than expected courtesy of one-off anomalies – for example, a team might shoot 60% from three-point range, which is something that clearly won’t occur every game. But that wasn’t the case in Game 1. Neither side shot all that well, the Pacers hitting 37.1% from three-point range and the Celtics at just 33.3% from beyond the arc, so there is a good chance that those numbers will either stay around the same or more likely, exceed that in Game 2. The high scoring nature of Game 1 was more a product of the way in which the game was played, with both sides getting up and down the court with speed and getting into their offence quickly. That is something that is likely to endure into Game 2, and should see plenty of points being scored as a result. 

Ben Sheppard to score 4+ points @ $2.10 | PlayUp 

Bit of a left-field tip here, but sometimes that is where the best value is found. Ben Sheppard has been a really useful component for the Pacers this postseason, the rookie providing some high level shooting, composure and quality decision making in roughly 20 minutes per night. He isn’t going to come out and set the world on fire, but he has consistently dished up a few points, dished out a couple of assists and generally helped the ensure that the ball keeps moving in a Pacers’ offence which demands exactly that. Sheppard is at better than even money to score a measly four points in this game with most betting sites, and based on how regularly he has been hitting that number of late this looks like a really good bet. He failed to get there in Game 1 of the series, scoring just two points from his four shots, but prior to that he had hit the number four times in a row and in six of his previous seven games. Sheppard is very consistently taking between four and six shots per game, a couple of those threes, and has been hitting at least one more often than not. Clearly to get to four points he only needs a couple of buckets, and in 20 minutes he should be able to do that even if he is not exactly a focal point of the offence. There is no reason to think that he will not get a similar number of minutes to what he has been getting every game of late, and that should be enough to see him get over this number, even if only marginally.

Tyrese Haliburton to score 25+ points @ $3.70 | BlueBet 

Finally, to the most important man on the floor for the Pacers. Tyrese Haliburton has been a major part of their improvement this season, earlier in the year putting himself into MVP discussions courtesy of his elite playmaking and scoring ability, the latter of which was punctuated by his excellent three-point shooting. Over the past few months, however, his output has dwindled significantly. In these playoffs he has begun to find his rhythm again, but it hasn’t been on a night to night basis and there have been big gaps between his best and worst games – both in terms of actual production, and in terms of how aggressive he is in looking for his shot. But that opens the door for some good value longer odds betting. Haliburton has become increasingly dangerous as the playoffs have worn on, putting together a number of big games of late. His points line set by betting agencies is around 20.5, right on his season average, but rather than bet purely on his over, the 25+ points market looks like good value. The reason for this is that often of late, when Haliburton has a good game, he has a very good game; he has scored at least 20 points in five of his last seven games, and in four of those he has gone on to score at least 25 points, including in his last two. That would suggest that if he hits his over in this game there is a very good chance that he goes on to cover it fairly comfortably, which means that this longer odds bet is far better value than simply his points over. Having hit 25 points or more twice in a row and in four of his last seven games, close to $4 odds for him to do it in this game looks like a pretty good bet.