NBA Playoffs 2022 on Wednesday, 05/18/2022
Our NBA Playoffs schedule reveals something monstrous: Both finalists from last year have already passed on! Starting Wednesday, the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat will play in one of the two Conference Finals.
In the course of my Heat Celtics prediction, I will look at individual aspects, why I see the Green-Whites advancing to the next round and why I expect a low-scoring game of the highest order in the series opener!
The saying “Offense wins games, defence wins championships”, attributed to legendary college football coach Paul Bryant, not only seems to be true, but it also translates beautifully to the sport of basketball.
According to the official NBA statistics, the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics have by far the two best defences in the current playoffs, with net ratings of 9.8 and 7.4 respectively.
By comparison, the Dallas Mavericks, who have also reached the Conference Finals, already follow in 3rd place (!) with a rating of 4.0 – which is only half that of the other two teams.
At this point, even as a basketball layman, it can already be determined that this Series will be dominated by the two defensive lines and a low-scoring game seems virtually inevitable.
Strong indication of this: The Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks ended with the C’s winning 4-3 on aggregate, never breaking the 217-point mark.
The conditions for another low-scoring game couldn’t be better on Wednesday, as the Heat have a much better defence than the now-defeated defending champions!
Many pundits believe it will be the Celtics who end up winning the NBA Finals this time around – and indeed, much seems to indicate that the Green and Whites are ripe for the title.
Amazingly, Boston have reached the Conference Finals for the fourth time in the last six years alone. But they have been consistently denied a trip to the absolute finals since 2010.
The Celtics are by no means the “3-point machine” of the NBA, so the Bucks resorted to a playbook in the Conference Semifinals that forced the supposedly weak C’s to take more three-pointers from distance.
That plan backfired, however, as the Celtics made 53 more threes than Milwaukee in the series against the defending champions – the highest such differential in a playoffs series ever.
Now, over the course of the season, the Bucks have allowed opposing teams to take their threes from beyond the arc 44.8% of the time – only one other NBA team has been more generous league-wide: the Miami Heat at 45.6%.
The Heat absolutely have to deviate from this plan and prevent the C’s from taking free distance shots. Because this tendency, which they have already displayed in the regular season, has already been their undoing several times against their upcoming opponents.
During the regular-season duels, Miami even allowed Boston to shoot 48.6% of their shots from beyond the 3-point line. The Green and Whites were able to win two of the three games on the strength of their impressive scoring rates!
Conclusion: In principle, I would bet on low-scoring games in this series until I am proven wrong – both teams are simply incredibly strong defensively.
The Heat and the Celtics have by far the best defenses in the playoffs. In the Boston series against the Bucks, the Heat never scored more than 217 points.
However, if you’re still hot for a Heat Celtics tip that calls for the winner of the series, I’ll tell you right here that I’ll be putting my own money on the more experienced Green and Whites.
However, my Heat Celtics tip remains primary: Under 200 points!
