Boston Celtics Advance in NBA Playoffs: Key Insights
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Some final takeaways from a series that has now gone final.
00:06 The Boston Celtics knock off the Cleveland Cavaliers
00:09 in the second round of the Eastern Conference
00:11 playoffs in only five games.
00:14 Boston has won both of their two playoff series in five games
00:18 after uncharacteristically, or maybe what
00:21 has become a common occurrence, losing in game number two
00:25 as a heavy home favorite.
00:27 We'll talk about Boston in just a moment.
00:30 But DRS, a lot of reporting about the Cavaliers
00:32 from FanDuel TV, Sham Sharania, our guy,
00:36 after the Cavs had their season come to a close
00:39 here in only five games in the second round.
00:41 Of course, we did not see Donovan Mitchell
00:43 in games four or five.
00:45 There is a report that JB Bickerstaff, the head coach
00:48 in Cleveland, is on his way out the door
00:51 that some of the vets, like Spida and others,
00:54 did not care for his coaching style.
00:56 There was a report that Evan Mobley's agent
00:59 told Cleveland not to draft him in the top five back in 2021
01:02 so he could go to a place like Oklahoma City.
01:06 And Darius Garland's agent is telling people
01:08 that if Spida returns to the land,
01:11 that Garland's going to look for a new NBA organization.
01:15 One of my favorite things about the NBA,
01:17 the offseason drama almost outweighs even a playoff
01:21 appearance for an NBA franchise.
01:24 And as soon, and I mean literally as soon
01:27 as a season comes to a close, all of these storylines
01:30 that have apparently been building up over a season
01:33 or multiple just come flooding out.
01:36 - Yeah, exactly.
01:38 And this is sometimes we talk about where the offseason
01:40 just as entertaining as maybe a deep playoff run
01:43 for a basketball organization.
01:45 But are we turning into the NBA now as,
01:46 and again, it's been changing this way.
01:48 Look, I don't like my coach.
01:49 Let me just get one of my friends in here as a coach.
01:51 And if you want to keep me as a superstar,
01:52 you can't have the coach.
01:53 It's one of the few leagues that can actually do that
01:55 for a player.
01:56 So let's just say Donovan Mitchell goes,
01:58 unless you change the coaches,
01:59 I'm going to demand a trade or I'm out of here.
02:01 You know what's going to happen?
02:02 Donovan Mitchell's not going to be out of there.
02:04 The coach is going to be gone.
02:05 If he wants to stay in Cleveland, he will be there.
02:07 But if he wants to leave,
02:08 there's nothing really you can do.
02:09 Same thing that we saw with Dame Lillard.
02:11 Now, depending on where you go
02:12 and that exact destination you want to get to,
02:15 typically NBA players can choose that destination.
02:17 But we saw last year, Dame wanted to go to Miami
02:20 and everybody thought he was going to Miami
02:21 at the last minute.
02:22 We're talking football.
02:23 It's like, oh, look at this trade that just went down.
02:25 Dame went to Milwaukee.
02:26 So be careful what you ask for at this point
02:28 if you're Donovan Mitchell,
02:29 but the NBA superstars do hold all the cards
02:32 in their organization.
02:33 That's true.
02:35 - So that's the Cleveland side of things.
02:37 The Cavaliers now enter the off season.
02:39 Boston into the Eastern Conference Finals
02:41 for a third consecutive year.
02:44 This was anticipated.
02:45 Boston entered the year as a co-favorite
02:47 alongside Dame and the Bucs to win the East,
02:50 a co-favorite to win the NBA Championship.
02:53 That is the evaluation piece for the Celtics.
02:56 That is the threshold by which we judge the Cs.
03:00 In Boston now, eight and two in the postseason,
03:04 covering in six of those eight victories.
03:06 The Celtics were the NBA's best team all season long.
03:11 They have earned home floor advantage
03:13 throughout the Eastern Conference
03:15 and even in to the NBA Finals.
03:17 After the win last night over the Cavs,
03:20 Boston is now 41 and six,
03:23 straight up this year inside TD Garden.
03:25 25, 20, and two against the spread,
03:29 booked as a favorite in each of those games
03:33 at home in Beantown, where in the postseason, Donnie,
03:36 Boston has been at least a 13 point favorite
03:39 inside TD Garden.
03:41 The favorites remain the favorites
03:43 entering the Eastern Conference Finals,
03:45 where they await the winner of the series
03:47 between the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers.
03:49 Game six, by the way, in Indy tomorrow night
03:53 on a Friday evening.
03:54 In Boston right now, the best price we have seen
03:56 for a team to win the NBA title this season, minus 155.
04:01 - Yeah, and by the way, that number's a little bit higher
04:03 than I thought it would be this morning,
04:05 'cause it was supposed to be a foregone conclusion
04:06 yesterday that they would win.
04:08 The interesting part is,
04:09 obviously with the FanDuel Sportsbook,
04:10 they're not just looking at the Boston Celtics.
04:12 It's who they might match up against.
04:13 And I wonder if it was like, okay, we know Dallas is good,
04:16 but OKC, technically the better team
04:18 over the Dallas Mavericks, they lost that game.
04:20 So maybe a little bit extra push for the Boston Celtics.
04:23 I can't imagine that minus, again,
04:25 minus 155 does surprise me a little bit
04:27 because we expect the Boston Celtics
04:29 to continue to move forward.
04:31 I don't know how much deeper this number can actually get.
04:33 Like it can't go to a minus 200 price.
04:35 That doesn't even make any sense at this point.
04:36 So I'm a little bit flummoxed at this minus 155.
04:39 I thought it would stay in that minus 140-ish range,
04:42 but yet here we are,
04:43 a lot more money coming in on the Boston Celtics
04:44 and a lot more belief.
04:46 - So the last few days we've had the conversation,
04:49 how large do these numbers get?
04:51 How strong is the price in favor of Boston?
04:54 I agree with you, Donnie.
04:55 I don't think it has much more to go
04:58 before Boston reaches the NBA finals.
05:00 If they were to play the Denver Nuggets,
05:02 could it approach minus 200?
05:04 If they were to play any other team,
05:06 the Mavericks or the Thunder,
05:08 would it be greater than two bills?
05:10 Probably, just because of the questions we have
05:13 about both of those NBA teams.
05:15 But at the moment,
05:17 I don't expect it to be any better than minus 155
05:21 as we await the winner of the series
05:23 between the Knicks and the Pacers.
05:25 But we did say we weren't sure
05:26 we were going to see the Celtics get much stronger
05:29 than a minus 600, minus 650, minus 700 favorite
05:33 to win the East.
05:34 They're almost a 10 to one favorite
05:36 in minus money at minus 950.
05:39 Is that the favorite price for Boston
05:42 in the Eastern Conference Finals?
05:44 Will that be what the series outright number is
05:46 regardless of who the Celtics face?
05:49 - It probably will be at this point,
05:51 depending on what news we get back, right?
05:53 If it's the Pacers,
05:54 I don't know how that number changes all that much,
05:55 but we're trying to focus on the Knicks right now
05:58 and what we're going to get at OG on a no be moving forward
06:00 because that'll be a much more competitive series
06:02 with him in the lineup.
06:03 But there is no stop.
06:04 Like I think there's a stop number
06:06 on the NBA championship odds here, Mando,
06:08 for the Boston Celtics.
06:09 There's not really a stop number here
06:11 on the Eastern Conference
06:12 because what have we been preaching?
06:14 And this hasn't even been like,
06:15 oh, once the playoffs started,
06:16 when we started really talking NBA,
06:18 like late September, it's like the season is here.
06:20 We always thought it was two teams
06:22 in the Eastern Conference.
06:23 It was Milwaukee and it was Boston
06:25 and through about what, halfway through the season,
06:28 let's be kind here for Milwaukee,
06:29 before they fell off making the coaching change,
06:31 it turned into, well,
06:32 the final couple of months of the season
06:34 is all about the Celtics just making the NBA finals
06:36 because that's a foregone conclusion.
06:38 So I agree with the pricing here.
06:39 Minus 950, who would take that?
06:41 Well, if you have a lot of shoebox money under your bed,
06:43 you just wanna make a quick investment,
06:44 take the Boston Celtics.
06:45 They're getting to the NBA finals.
06:47 Doesn't matter the price.
06:48 - It's what, for sure,
06:49 it's why I bet Boston on March 20th
06:52 to win the NBA championship at a plus 220 number
06:55 because you could read the tea leaves
06:57 about how the Eastern Conference might set up for the Cs.
07:00 I didn't think it would be this easy of a stroll,
07:02 certainly not with Joel Embiid returning for Philadelphia
07:05 or the New York Knicks looking like world beaters
07:07 before they lost OGN and OB and Mitchell Robinson,
07:10 that's where things are for Boston at this moment.
07:14 On the other side, the Denver Nuggets,
07:16 an odds on favorite once again
07:18 to win the Western Conference crown at minus 135.
07:21 There is no doubt that the toughest possible opponent
07:25 for Boston is Denver.
07:27 Maybe from the odds maker's perspective,
07:29 that would certainly be the case.
07:31 You could argue maybe you would favor the Timberwolves
07:33 or the Thunder or even the Mavs in a matchup,
07:36 but the odds makers would have Denver
07:38 as the shortest underdog against the Celtics
07:41 in a potential NBA championship series.
07:44 Of course, we have only one game tonight in the NBA playoffs.
07:48 I hope you enjoyed last night,
07:50 the Wednesday night doubleheader,
07:51 because Donnie, that's the last time I think
07:53 we see a doubleheader of NBA playoff action
07:56 throughout this postseason
07:58 or the entirety of the NBA campaign.
08:00 Tonight, only one game, back to the Twin Cities we go.
08:04 The Timberwolves trying to stave off elimination,
08:07 but the book is a two and a half point home,
08:08 favorite in game number six.
08:10 - Yeah, and it is a shame of that too,
08:12 but it's what happens when you go towards a championship,
08:14 less and less teams are involved.
08:16 So we don't have those NBA triple headers,
08:18 which we were loving, the double headers,
08:19 a lot of good stuff to talk about, playoffs on the line.
08:22 It's why we always root sometimes
08:23 as content people saying to ourself, you know what?
08:26 If this goes, oh, it's supposed to close out in five,
08:27 but we get game six.
08:28 We love that.
08:29 Same thing in hockey, like just extend these series,
08:31 gives us a lot more fun things to talk about.
08:33 And also when we talk about fun things,
08:35 there's nothing really fun
08:35 about the Eastern Conference right now.
08:37 It's Boston, just move them into the NBA finals
08:39 where we're really sinking our teeth here
08:40 into the Western Conference.
08:42 Let's see if we can get some game sevens
08:43 in the Western Conference to at least keep the ability
08:46 to have a night-to-night basis
08:47 talking big time NBA basketball.
08:49 - And I think there's a chance
08:52 that both of these sets go to seven.
08:54 Again, Denver the underdog on the road tonight
08:57 with a win, the Nuggets back
08:58 into the Western Conference finals
09:00 for a second straight year.
09:02 Minnesota, where they win, would force a game seven
09:05 at altitude this weekend in the Mile High City.
09:08 In game number six between OKC and Dallas,
09:11 in Dallas is on Saturday night.
09:14 (upbeat music)
09:17 (bell ringing)