NBA Finals: Game 5 Best Bets

Game 5 feels like the biggest coin flip in the series, with the winner of tonight’s showdown having a massive advantage going forward. Winners of best-of-seven NBA series that are tied 2-2 go on to win that series more than 82 percent of the time. Will this be the night that Jayson Tatum finally breaks out of his series-long shooting slump? Can Stephen Curry continue to carry a Golden State team that was playing 4-on-5 due to Draymond Green’s shooting woes? We’ll get those answers in a few hours, but before then, there’s no question as to what we think the best bets are for tonight’s game.

1) Warriors -3.5/-110 (BetMGM)

Something has to give tonight: The Warriors are an impressive 10-1 at home during the postseason, with the only defeat coming at the hands of… the Celtics, who have gone this entire playoff run without losing two games in a row.

The main question, of course, centers around what the Warriors do with Green. Based on his performance so far in the series, Golden State simply can’t afford to play him 33 minutes per night as we saw in Game 4. So, expect Steve Kerr to lean more on Kevon Looney and Jordan Poole to pick up the slack on both ends of the court.

More minutes for Looney should even up the rebounding scales, and in the case of the latter, more run for Poole should help the Warriors – 5-1 ATS in their last six home games as a favorite – cover the spread. When Poole has scored 12 points or more this postseason, Golden State is 12-2, including a perfect 8-0 record at home.

2) Under 212/-110 (DraftKings)

The total of 212 feels a bit steep given the rambunctious San Francisco/Oakland crowd: The total has gone under in eight of the Celtics’ last nine games on the road against the Warriors. Over the last eight games these two teams have played in the Bay Area, they’ve combined to score an average of 208.3 points. Boston shot 15-for-38 (39.5 percent) from beyond the arc on Friday night, and still didn’t manage to break the century mark in scoring.

3) Marcus Smart Over 20.5 Points and Assists

Smart has cleared this bar in three out of the four games this series, and will probably do so again given that the Celtics will need to keep hitting from distance if they have any chance of hosting the Larry O’Brien Trophy. As Boston’s primary ball-handler, he should notch 4-5 assists without any trouble, and with the Warriors’ better perimeter defenders likely assigned to Tatum and Jaylen Brown, a 16-18 point performance doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

4) Robert Williams Over 7.5 Rebounds

I think we can all agree that the likelihood of Andrew Wiggins grabbing 16 rebounds again is pretty remote, and if Kerr sits Green more than usual in Game 5, Boston’s big men should be able to clean up on the boards. It’s hard to say if Williams is completely healthy, but the 22 total rebounds that the Celtics’ center collected in Games 3 and 4 tells me that he’s spry enough to eclipse the total here in what essentially is a do-or-die game tonight at the Chase Center.