Bet This Celtics vs. Warriors NBA Finals Game 1 Parlay at (+261)
Boston Celtics vs. Golden State Warriors
Thursday, June 2, 2022 at 9 p.m. ET (ABC) at Chase Center in San Francisco
Game 7 Trend
One key trend that goes against Boston is that teams coming off a Game 7 victory tend to struggle in Game 1 of the following series.
This trend has already hurt Boston in its current playoff run.
After beating Milwaukee in Game 7, the Celtics lost Game 1 to Miami 118-107.
Given the fact that Boston won its series against Miami, it is apparent that the Celtics performed relatively poorly in the game immediately following their Game 7 win against the Bucks.
Home Opener Trend
In these playoffs, the Warriors have dominated in every home series opener.
Their first home series opener was Game 1 against Denver. They beat the Nuggets by 16.
Then, they hosted Memphis for Game 3. They won by an absurd score of 142-112.
Most recently, they hosted Dallas for Game 1. They dominated the Mavericks 112-87.
Experience
In addition to key trends, experience favors the Warriors.
Experience is important in the NBA Finals because in no other series in the playoffs and in no other situation is everything on the line like it is now.
Whereas Boston, which last made the NBA Finals in 2010, is inexperienced, current Warrior players have repeatedly participated in the NBA Finals and done so with success.
The gap in NBA Finals experience, which favors the Warriors, will be most significant in Game 1 when Celtic players are making their NBA Finals debut.
Is Golden State More Battle-Tested?
Celtic supporters will highlight the quality of their defense.
But Golden State in these playoffs has already faced and overcome a high-ranking defense.
Not only did they face the Grizzlies, but they faced a Grizzly squad that missed Ja Morant for multiple games in the series.
The Grizzly defense is stronger overall without Morant, and its scheme becomes more diverse without him.
They can do more switching and otherwise inject more variety into their ball-screen defense, and their help defense improves.
While Boston's defense is higher-ranked, the Warriors will already be prepared for the quality of its defense because they already overcame the Warriors.
Is Boston More Battle-Tested?
The Celtics have not faced an offense as strong, well-rounded, and intricate as Golden State's.
They handled Brooklyn's broken offense.
Then, they overcame a Milwaukee team that relies heavily on one star.
The Bucks are not intricate. They will use Giannis to attack the opponent's interior defense, using his combo of physicality and athleticism to force the defense to rotate, and then punishing the opponent with good three-point shooting.
Most recently, Boston required seven games to overcome a Miami squad that relied on one healthy, good scorer albeit one who cannot shoot.
Golden State, with its motion-heavy, disguise-laden offense will challenge Boston schematically.
The Warriors are also well-rounded -- Andrew Wiggins scores a lot inside, and even Steph Curry was efficient driving to the basket in his team's last series while Kevon Looney behaved like a good scoring center.
Of course, led by Curry and Klay Thompson, they are also one of the best three-point shooting squads, ranking fourth in three-point percentage.
Can Golden State Exploit Boston's Defense?
Focusing on Boston's defensive stats will create a misleading impression of how this series will proceed.
While the Celtic defense ranks highly, it has benefitted from matching up better against other offenses than it does against Golden State's offense.
The Warriors can do things on offense that will punish Boston's defense.
Defensively, Boston is anchored by slower-footed bigs.
Its key big defender is Robert Williams III.
On offense, Golden State will make Boston's key defensive asset a liability.
The Warriors will employ a small-ball lineup with Draymond Green at the five.
With their bevy of cuts, their motion, their movement, their quickness, they will torment the Celtic interior defense.
Thus, what has helped make the Celtic defense great will hurt it.
In previous series, the Celtics have employed drop coverage in order to protect the basket.
It hasn't taken much for opponents to punish Boston's drop coverage.
For Miami, when he was healthy, Tyler Herro sufficed to punish the Celtics for employing this kind of ball-screen coverage.
Golden State has multiple solid shooters with which to damage Boston's ball-screen defense.
The Celtics will not want to switch and expose their bigs or play drop coverage and get punished by Warriors shooters.
But if they do employ some sort of hedge-and-recover tactic, they will be resorting to defensive strategies that they are not as comfortable employing and that, even if they were comfortable, will create more gaps which Warrior cutting and motion will attack.
Total Verdict
On offense, Boston likes to settle for jumpers, thus resembling the Warriors' last playoff opponent, Dallas, which likewise ranks top-nine in three-pointers attempted per game.
The Warriors' biggest defensive adjustment will be to handle an offense that, unlike Dallas, has two solid scorers instead of one, although Jaylen Brown is not nearly the same threat that he is in the regular season because the playoffs involve a more half-court style of play.
For the above reasons, expect the Warriors to cover the spread in a higher-scoring game where they overwhelm Boston's defense while the Celtics' combination of shooters does the little it will need to do to help the game go over the posted total.
Best Bet: Parlay Warriors -3.5 at -112 & Over 212.5 at -110 at +261 with BetOnline
Boston Celtics vs. Golden State Warriors
Thursday, June 2, 2022 at 9 p.m. ET (ABC) at Chase Center in San Francisco
Game 7 Trend
One key trend that goes against Boston is that teams coming off a Game 7 victory tend to struggle in Game 1 of the following series.
This trend has already hurt Boston in its current playoff run.
After beating Milwaukee in Game 7, the Celtics lost Game 1 to Miami 118-107.
Given the fact that Boston won its series against Miami, it is apparent that the Celtics performed relatively poorly in the game immediately following their Game 7 win against the Bucks.
Home Opener Trend
In these playoffs, the Warriors have dominated in every home series opener.
Their first home series opener was Game 1 against Denver. They beat the Nuggets by 16.
Then, they hosted Memphis for Game 3. They won by an absurd score of 142-112.
Most recently, they hosted Dallas for Game 1. They dominated the Mavericks 112-87.
Experience
In addition to key trends, experience favors the Warriors.
Experience is important in the NBA Finals because in no other series in the playoffs and in no other situation is everything on the line like it is now.
Whereas Boston, which last made the NBA Finals in 2010, is inexperienced, current Warrior players have repeatedly participated in the NBA Finals and done so with success.
The gap in NBA Finals experience, which favors the Warriors, will be most significant in Game 1 when Celtic players are making their NBA Finals debut.
Is Golden State More Battle-Tested?
Celtic supporters will highlight the quality of their defense.
But Golden State in these playoffs has already faced and overcome a high-ranking defense.
Not only did they face the Grizzlies, but they faced a Grizzly squad that missed Ja Morant for multiple games in the series.
The Grizzly defense is stronger overall without Morant, and its scheme becomes more diverse without him.
They can do more switching and otherwise inject more variety into their ball-screen defense, and their help defense improves.
While Boston's defense is higher-ranked, the Warriors will already be prepared for the quality of its defense because they already overcame the Warriors.
Is Boston More Battle-Tested?
The Celtics have not faced an offense as strong, well-rounded, and intricate as Golden State's.
They handled Brooklyn's broken offense.
Then, they overcame a Milwaukee team that relies heavily on one star.
The Bucks are not intricate. They will use Giannis to attack the opponent's interior defense, using his combo of physicality and athleticism to force the defense to rotate, and then punishing the opponent with good three-point shooting.
Most recently, Boston required seven games to overcome a Miami squad that relied on one healthy, good scorer albeit one who cannot shoot.
Golden State, with its motion-heavy, disguise-laden offense will challenge Boston schematically.
The Warriors are also well-rounded -- Andrew Wiggins scores a lot inside, and even Steph Curry was efficient driving to the basket in his team's last series while Kevon Looney behaved like a good scoring center.
Of course, led by Curry and Klay Thompson, they are also one of the best three-point shooting squads, ranking fourth in three-point percentage.
Can Golden State Exploit Boston's Defense?
Focusing on Boston's defensive stats will create a misleading impression of how this series will proceed.
While the Celtic defense ranks highly, it has benefitted from matching up better against other offenses than it does against Golden State's offense.
The Warriors can do things on offense that will punish Boston's defense.
Defensively, Boston is anchored by slower-footed bigs.
Its key big defender is Robert Williams III.
On offense, Golden State will make Boston's key defensive asset a liability.
The Warriors will employ a small-ball lineup with Draymond Green at the five.
With their bevy of cuts, their motion, their movement, their quickness, they will torment the Celtic interior defense.
Thus, what has helped make the Celtic defense great will hurt it.
In previous series, the Celtics have employed drop coverage in order to protect the basket.
It hasn't taken much for opponents to punish Boston's drop coverage.
For Miami, when he was healthy, Tyler Herro sufficed to punish the Celtics for employing this kind of ball-screen coverage.
Golden State has multiple solid shooters with which to damage Boston's ball-screen defense.
The Celtics will not want to switch and expose their bigs or play drop coverage and get punished by Warriors shooters.
But if they do employ some sort of hedge-and-recover tactic, they will be resorting to defensive strategies that they are not as comfortable employing and that, even if they were comfortable, will create more gaps which Warrior cutting and motion will attack.
Total Verdict
On offense, Boston likes to settle for jumpers, thus resembling the Warriors' last playoff opponent, Dallas, which likewise ranks top-nine in three-pointers attempted per game.
The Warriors' biggest defensive adjustment will be to handle an offense that, unlike Dallas, has two solid scorers instead of one, although Jaylen Brown is not nearly the same threat that he is in the regular season because the playoffs involve a more half-court style of play.
For the above reasons, expect the Warriors to cover the spread in a higher-scoring game where they overwhelm Boston's defense while the Celtics' combination of shooters does the little it will need to do to help the game go over the posted total.
Best Bet: Parlay Warriors -3.5 at -112 & Over 212.5 at -110 at +261 with BetOnline
