Our Wednesday double-header gives us the first potential closeout game of the conference semifinals, with the Boston Celtics hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers already up three games to one.
Out West, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks will break their 2-2 tie with the winner in the driver’s seat to make it to the Western Conference Finals.
Let’s dig more into each matchup to identify some angles of interest for players and/or teams to outproduce expectation.
Cavaliers-Celtics over 205.5 total points (-105): The Celtics and Cavaliers have played seven times this season, including three regular-season matchups and four playoffs games. In those games, the teams have only combined for less than 205.5 points once… in Game 3, when they combined for only 199. They averaged a combined 221.7 PPG in the regular season and, outside of Game 3, have averaged 212.7 combined PPG in the playoffs. They combined for 211 points in Game 4 despite Donovan Mitchell not playing, and even if the game ends up a blowout (Boston is favored by 15.5 points), it’s likely the Celtics could still put a big enough scoring total on the board to get to the over. The BPI projected point total for this game is 210.3 points.
Evan Mobley over 15.5 points (-120). The Cavaliers have been without Jarrett Allen (GTD, ribs) all series, were without Mitchell (GTD, calf) in Game 4 and have added sixth man Caris LeVert (GTD, knee) to the injury report with a knee issue. This puts more pressure on Mobley to join Darius Garland as the primary scoring options for the Cavaliers. Mobley has been quietly consistent as a scorer in this series, averaging 18.5 PPG with between 17 and 21 points scored in each game. This includes both the competitive games and the blowouts; Mobley has scored in every game. I look for Game 5 to be more of the same and for Mobley to go over 15.5 points for the fifth straight game against the Celtics.
