Just four teams remain in the hunt for this season’s NBA Championship! The Conference Finals will begin on Wednesday with Game 1 of the Nuggets vs Lakers matchup, followed by Game 1 of the Celtics vs Heat on Thursday. We bring you our best bets for both games right here!
Check out our NBA betting tips for both upcoming Game 1's below and good luck to everyone following!
NBA Conference Finals Betting Tips: Game 1
Los Angeles Lakers at Denver Nuggets
Ball Arena, 10:30am AEST
The Los Angeles Lakers and the Denver Nuggets have both safely navigated their way through the first two rounds of the playoffs and will now face off in the Western Conference Finals. The Nuggets are the #1 seed in the West and have homecourt advantage in this best-of-seven series.
The Lakers certainly took the more scenic route to the Conference Finals of the pair. They finished seventh in the West, which meant they had to first win their way through the Play-In Tournament before matching up with the Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs. They obviously took care of them quite easily before taking down the defending champion Warriors in six games most recently.
The Nuggets may have finished as the #1 seed in the West but they still had some doubters to prove wrong. However, they’ve managed to do exactly that by taking down the Timberwolves in five games, as well as knocking off Booker, Durant and the Suns in six games in the second round.
The Lakers are clearly performing better than your normal seventh seed, but I’m not convinced they’ll match up well against the Nuggets. Anthony Davis has had the advantage in the paint against both of their opponents to date, but he and the Lakers now come up against the best player in the world in Nikola Jokic. I expect the Lakers to cop a reality check in Denver in Game 1, with the hosts covering the spread in the process.
Denver Nuggets -5.5
$1.87 (2.5 Units)
Miami Heat at Boston Celtics
TD Garden, 10:30am AEST
Although taking different paths to get to this point, the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics will now matchup in the Eastern Conference Finals, The Celtics finished with the better record in the regular season and will have homecourt advantage in 4/7 of the games.
The Miami Heat are the lowest seeded team left in these playoffs but are to be underestimated at one’s peril. They stunned the #1 seed Bucks in the opening round of the playoffs and backed it up by making relatively light work of the Knicks most recently.
The Celtics made hard work for themselves in their opening round series against the Hawks but eventually ended it in six games. However, their toughest test to date came in the second round against the 76ers where they trailed 3-2. Only 17% of teams have comeback from such a deficit in NBA Playoffs history, and the Celtics have now done it two years in a row.
The Celtics are the heavy favourites to win both this series and Game 1 on Thursday morning. While that is justified by their far superior regular season, it’s the Heat who have clearly been the more consistent team in the playoffs thus far. The +8.5 line in Game 1 is a bit of an insult to the Heat in all honestly, and I’ll be backing them in to cover that.
Miami Heat +8.5
$1.90 (1.5 Units)
