NBA Playoffs: Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat Game 7 Preview, Odds, Prediction

The Miami Heat forced Game 7 of the East finals, defeating the Boston Celtics following Jimmy Butler’s incredible performance, which will be remembered for a long time. The Heat now has the home-court advantage and the momentum coming into the decisive game of the series. Though, despite losing this one, the Celtics are still slight favorites, and they showed us already that winning on the road this season isn’t a problem for them. In fact, their best performances in the postseason were on the road. All this indicates that Sunday’s game will be a memorable one.

Preview

Boston Celtics (-115) didn’t have a solution for Jimmy Butler, and in the end, that turned out to be the biggest reason for a loss. The Cs couldn’t stop Jimmy B, while on the other side, they weren’t as sharp as usual on the offensive side. We immediately noticed Al Horford’s poor performance, with the veteran scoring only three points in this one.

Jayson Tatum had 30 points with nine boards, and Jaylen Brown added 20. They combined for 15 boards and nine assists, with five steals. But what was highly problematic was the fact that Tatum committed seven turnovers while Brown had four. And that is something that simply can’t happen in the situations like this one.

Derrick White was superb off the bench with 22 points and three steals, but he alone couldn’t do anything. The only contribution from non-starters came from Grant Williams, who had two points. Marcus Smart scored 14, shooting threes 1-for-9, while Robert Williams III had 12 points, but just one board.

Miami Heat (-105) made 15 threes in 35 trues, far better than in the past two events. On top of that, there was unreal Butler who ended the event with 47 points, nine boards, and eight dimes. Additionally, the Heat’s leader had four steals and lost the ball only once in 46 minutes of play. Well, what can you as for more than that?

Kyle Lowry finally appeared. The veteran playmaker had a poor shooting percentage, 5-for-14, but he nevertheless scored 18 points and had 10 assists, hitting four threes. This was a refreshment compared to his miserable performances in the previous events.

Max Struss scored 13 buckets, PJ Tucker 11, while Bam Adebayo had only six with nine boards. Victor Oladipo came off the bench to add nine points and five boards.

Head to Head Games

The teams traded blows in the opening three games, with the Heat having a 1-0 and a 2-1 lead, but that was when Boston won two in a row, and had a chance to eliminate the Heat last night. Though, the guests from Miami triumphed, 111-103, in Game 6.

Prediction

The line for the total points is set at 197.5 and this is a clear over for us. We understand that the series is defensive-oriented, but still, this line is way too low, and as we saw, there were two overs and one under in the previous two events in Miami compared to this number of points. Regarding the winner, we would advise you to stay out of that, and focus only on points.

Pick: Over 197.5 points