Dallas (1-3) at Boston (3-1)
When: Monday, June 17th 2024
Where: TD Garden,
Boston, MA
Time: 8:30 ET | TV: ABC
Opening Odds: Boston -7.5/209.5
The Dallas Mavericks will look to carry the momentum of a blowout win in Game 4 of the NBA Finals into Monday night’s Game 5 at the Boston Celtics. After dropping the first three games of the series, Dallas broke out with a dominating 122-84 victory on Friday to avoid elimination for at least one more game. Remember, no team in NBA history has comeback to win a playoff series when trailing 3-0. Boston is now a 6.5-point favorite for Monday’s contest with a total of 209.5.
Boston has been in this position twice already during the playoffs. In the first two rounds, they returned home up 3-1 in the series and cruised to easy victories over Cleveland and Miami. Dallas has not been in this situation. Their first and second rounds were tied 2-2 at this point, and in the Western Conference Finals they headed to Minnesota up 3-1. The Mavericks are now priced at +1300 to win the series, which is going to be a pretty large task against this Boston team.
DALLAS MAVERICKS
All the issues of Luka Doncic’s attitude, Dereck Lively’s ineffectiveness and Kyrie Irving’s struggles went away for at least one night. The Mavericks dominated the game like they were the best team in the league. They shot 50.3 percent overall, 40.5 percent from beyond the arc, out-rebounded the Celtics 52-31, had seven steals, and outscored Boston in the paint 60-26. Doncic and Irving combined for 50 points, but were a combined 1-of-14 from 3-point land. The rest of the team was a sizzling 14-of-23. Can Dallas carry that performance to TD Garden on Monday?
BOSTON CELTICS
Once Boston got behind early, it looked like they just wanted to get back on a plane and close thing out at home. The Game 4 performance was so poor that head coach Joe Mazzulla waved the white flag before the third period was over and cleared the bench. Jrue Holiday and Jayson Tatum were a minus-38 and minus-33 respectively. Al Horford finished with the best number of all five starters at minus-18. The Celtics have not lost back-to-back games this entire postseason.
Prediction:
Game 4 played out just like I thought and now it’s Boston’s turn to blowout Dallas. The Celtics have rebounded with easy wins in each of their previous two losses in these playoffs. I’ll lay the points and watch Boston win another championship.
Check out who Bobby Babowski has on his Free NBA Picks page for today.
