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Is this the end? Get set for Thursday’s Warriors-Celtics Game 6 with the latest odds and 2022 NBA Finals picks via FanDuel Sportsbook.
The Golden State Warriors are just one win from their seventh NBA title, but the Boston Celtics are at home with a chance to force a Game 7 in San Francisco on Sunday.
Betting on the NBA can be tricky, but you can rely on numberFire to help. We have a detailed betting algorithm that projects out games to see how often certain betting lines hit. You can also track spread bet percentages at FanDuel Sportsbook.
So, which bets and NBA Finals picks stand out in tonight’s Game 6?
All odds are from FanDuel Sportsbook.
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Celtics Moneyline (-166): 1 Star
NOTE: Stars represent how much numberFire recommends risking on a wager relative to what you would normally bet.
This series has been lined so efficiently that we’re working within incredibly thin margins once again.
Our model has the tiniest lean on the Celtics’ moneyline at -166. Those odds imply a 62.4% chance to win, and our model views Boston as 63.8% likely to win this game.
This series is incredibly easy to figure out. If the Celtics take care of the basketball, they win. If they don’t, they lose.
In fact, Boston is 13-2 this postseason when they have 15 or fewer turnovers. By the way, 15 is still a good amount of them! They’re just 1-7 when they exceed 15 turnovers, including all three losses in this series.
Golden State isn’t an imposing defense in that regard. Entering this series, they actually forced the fourth-fewest turnovers per game of any team in the postseason (12.8). The fact they’ve even been close is an absurd 56.4% team true shooting percentage, headlined by Stephen Curry’s mark of 60.4% with plenty of outside volume.
Data doesn’t lie, so I’ll go as far as to make this prediction — if Boston doesn’t surpass 15 turnovers in these last two games, they’ll be NBA Champions. If they do, it could end as soon as tonight.
Under 210.0 (-112): 1 Stars
The pace in this series is finally winning out. Three of the five games thus far have sailed under the point total after another under in Game 5.
Our model’s still leaning in that direction despite the slightly elevated 52.8% implied probability at -112. It believes that this game sees 210 points or fewer 57.1% of the time.
The cumulative pace is just 95.80, so this series should be hovering in the vicinity of 205 points. Truly, the exceptions have been Game 1 where Boston shot 52.7% from deep, and Game 3, which saw 39 total free-throw attempts. In a normal environment, this one has stayed under without any significant blowouts as we saw in the conference finals.
Of the 20 most similarly-profiled games to this one in numberFire’s database, 14 of them fell short of this point total.
Personally, this is the strongest I’ve felt about an under all series. You never want to be punting games in the NBA Finals, but Golden State is 0-3 with a chance to eliminate their opponent on the road this postseason. They lost those games by an average of 18.0 points.
They’ve punted the road closeout game in three straight series, so it wouldn’t be shocking at all to me to see a blowout in Game 6.
Swaim-Game Parlay (+515)
Celtics ML
Jaylen Brown OVER 21.5 Points
Jaylen Brown 6+ Rebounds
Marcus Smart OVER 4.5 Assists
Marcus Smart 2+ Made 3-pointers
Just one game on the slate means it’s Same-Game Parlay season now more than ever on FanDuel Sportsbook. For some fun, I drop 0.25 units a day on one to see if it hits. Feel free to tail mine…or create your own!
For the third time this postseason, all the player props hit from Monday’s parlay, but the cornerstone moneyline lost. Insinuating the potential for a blowout above, I’m still going back to the well with this torturous, mistake-prone team — Celtics ML (-166).
Today’s player props are pretty simple. They are key, model-supported bounce-back spots for two of Boston’s most crucial players: Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart.
Brown only posted 18 points in Game 5, but he’s been a reliable 20-point scorer. He’s hit that mark in 9 of his last 12 contests, and he is projected for 24.6 points at the median by numberFire’s model. With extreme confidence, I locked in Jaylen Brown Over 21.5 Points (-225).
Brown is also projected for 6.9 rebounds, and he’s grabbed at least six in seven straight games. Jaylen Brown 6+ Rebounds (-225) at the same price point works for me.
There is no more corollary player to Boston’s winning and his production than Marcus Smart, though. Smart averages 6.9 assists and 2.8 three-pointers made when they’ve won this postseason, and he’s averaged just 3.9 assists and 1.6 triples in games they have lost.
Therefore, we’re tossing in Marcus Smart Over 4.5 Assists (-172) and Marcus Smart 2+ Threes Made (-400) in a parlay with a Celtics win. If it happens, we’ll have the two best words in sports on tap — Game 7.
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