NBA Playoffs 2022 on Tuesday, 24.05.2022
The Boston Celtics definitely showed some nerves in their last duel against the Miami Heat! Just 48 hours after their loss to the Floridians, the head coach of the home side must be seriously considering dipping his players’ hands in tar.
Because the C’s simply gave away too many balls in their last game, sometimes on a dribble attempt, sometimes because they played the ball straight into the arms of an opposing defender. In my Celtics Heat tip, I’ll point out why Boston can’t be relied on right now!
The NBA playoffs remain unpredictable – and the opposite of what you expect always happens. Now, after an outright debacle in Game 2, the Heat actually managed to win the third game.
Miami was lucky to go into the dressing room with a 15-point lead before their “centre mast” broke. That’s because Jimmy Butler is the lynchpin of the Floridians’ game, and he didn’t come out of the dressing room due to a knee injury.
Nevertheless, his team managed to defend the lead and to be 109-103 in front at the time when the final siren sounded – however, the C’s gave the guests quite a hand!
What I don’t like about these C’s and why I won’t favour them again in Game 4 has primarily to do with their countless ball losses. Are Boston starting to feel the playoff pressure mounting?
The Heat could never have won if the Celtics hadn’t made one bad pass after another in the build-up to the game! However, the truth is that the 19 steals by the alert Floridians are a new play-off record.
Boston committed a total of 24 turnovers this evening, which in turn led to a 33:9 imbalance of points resulting from ball losses in favour of Miami!
But it’s worth going into more detail about the C’s many ball losses in view of the upcoming game. Because the nerves seem to flutter not only with a single player, but with the entire team, at the latest after a look at the statistics.
22 of the 24 turnovers were caused by starting five players! And it was the two best players, Jaylen Brown (7) and Jaysom Tatum (6), who were responsible for most of these ball losses.
How crass the whole thing reads from an analytical point of view is shown by the following statistic: As is generally known, a basketball game has 48 minutes, which in the case of Game 3 corresponds to an average ball loss by the Celtics in every second minute of the game.
Furthermore, the Celtics completed a total of 310 passes, of which Miami deflected one in ten (!) in some way. The Heat literally seemed to have their fingers in every offensive move the home side made!
Another indication that the C’s might actually be nervous is their unusual poor performance from the free throw line!
During the Regular Season, Boston is considered the second best FG team in the entire NBA with an 81.6% shooting percentage, but in Game 3 alone, they missed seven free throws!
Accordingly, the oddsmakers don’t seem to think that the home side will be guilty of a conspicuous amount of ball-handling sloppiness again – but I do!
Consequently, I think the approximate odds of 3.30 that are currently being offered on the markets for a Heat triumph are more interesting than the 1.35 that are available on average for a C’s win.
Conclusion: The Celtics are once again favoured by the German bookmakers – wrongly, in my opinion!
Because the C’s have given away a lot of balls lately and also missed a lot of free throws. You can clearly see their nervousness!
On the other hand, the Heat have been dangerous even without Jimmy Butler and have been a disruptive factor in the home side’s build-up to the game due to their many steals!
The Celtics Heat odds of the bookmakers seem to indicate a clear home win, but I personally can imagine that the Floridians will again capitalise on the many turnovers!
My tip: Miami wins!
