With the riveting victory by the New York Knicks in Detroit on Thursday, the Eastern Conference Semifinals are set. The top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers will take on the number-four seed Indiana Pacers while the three-seed Knicks are matched up against the defending champion, two-seed Boston Celtics.
The Celtics closed out their series with the Orlando Magic on Tuesday, so they will have two extra days of rest before they host the Knicks on Monday.
During the regular season, Boston won all four games head-to-head against New York. The one solace the Knicks can take is that margin of defeat decreased from the first to final meeting: 23, 27, 13 and 2 (overtime).
Both teams were near the bottom in pace during the regular season – New York was 26th while Boston was 29th. Boston had the second-best offensive rating while New York was fifth. The main difference between the two teams is that Boston was fourth in defensive rating while New York was 13th.
DK Sportsbook has Boston as heavy favorites to win the series at -800. New York is at +500.
Here are the series spread odds:
In terms of the O/U for number of games in the series, Over 5.5 games is +120 while the Under 5.5 games is -145.
If you bought that DeLorean off Craigslist, then you can profit off knowing exactly how many games will be played in the series. Even if you don’t have access to the future, you have a one in four chance of hitting.
