While the Western Conference side of the playoff bracket turned up chalk, the Eastern Conference was quite the spectacle. The two-seed Boston Celtics were knocked out in the first round while the top-seed Detroit Pistons were down 3-1 in their first round series before winning three straight to advance. Unfortunately, after going up 2-0 in the series with Cleveland, the Cavaliers were able to win Game 7 in Detroit to advance.
That leaves us with the four-seed Cavaliers and the three-seed New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals.
With the matchup set, DraftKings Sportsbook has listed opening odds for Game 1 of this series, which takes place Tuesday at 8 pm EDT. The Knicks enter as 7.5-point favorites with -265 odds to win on the moneyline. The Cavaliers are +215 underdogs with the game total set at 215.5 combined points.
During the regular season, these teams met three times, with the Knicks going 2-1. James Harden played in only one of those contests, and that happened to be in the lone win. The home teams were 3-0 in the series.
New York had the fourth-best offensive rating during the regular season and the seventh-best defense. Cleveland was sixth on offense and 15th on defense.
