The NBA championship series is still some weeks away. The conference finals still need to be played. In this post, we want to discuss which teams we think will represent the Eastern and Western Conferences and who will win.
In the East, the Celtics are about to dispatch of a heavily outmatched Cavaliers team. They are basically a shoe-in at this point and online sportsbooks have the Celts as a -100,000 favorite to close out Cleveland. Yes, you read that right. It would take you risking $100K to win $100 measly dollars if you were to bet the Celtics at this point. The series started with Boston at a hefty -3000 favorite. We think Boston will win in short order over Indiana or New York, regardless of which team they will face.
In the West, Minnesota has given the defending champion Nuggets all they can handle and that series is tied at 2 a piece. We think Denver is back and will win this series. We also think they will beat Dallas or OKC, regardless who they play.
So, this leads us to the Finals. Boston will face Denver and will be favored between -140 to -200, depending how the remaining games between now and then play out. We like Boston to win this series. Boston is -140 currently to win it all and Denver is +350. The reason for this line disparity is that Boston is up 3 games to 1 over Cleveland and Denver is even at 2 to 2 with Minnesota.
So, in short, the picks we will be playing as a result of our analysis are:
Denver -170 to close out Minnesota
Denver -(?) to defeat Dallas/OKC
Boston -1.5 games (-?) to defeat NY/IND
Boston -(?) to defeat Denver in the Finals
The -1.5 games pick we mentioned above is a handy way to bring the moneyline way down against a team who is severely overmatched. We also published this type of gameline in our Boston over Cleveland pick earlier this month.
