Should Boston Celtics be championship betting favorites

The Boston Celtics entered Friday with the shortest odds on the board (+200) to win the NBA championship at ESPN BET.

But should the Celtics really be the favorite? Although the Celtics have played well overall this season, there are two teams that have clearly been better through the first half. The Celtics currently have as many losses at 28-12 as the Thunder (34-6, +250 to win) and the Cavaliers (34-6, +750 to win) combined. In fact, through 40 games, both the Thunder and the Cavs remain on pace to win 70 games. Each.

The Celtics go into Friday night’s game against the Orlando Magic having lost three of their last five games, and six of 12. Those last three defeats have come by a combined 43 points with each loss by at least 13 points, including the thrashing handed to them by the 10-31 Raptors on Wednesday.

Why are the Celtics still favored to win?

Some of it is inertia. The Celtics won last season’s championship pretty routinely. They won the Eastern Conference by a whopping 14 games, and were seven games clear of the Thunder out West for the best record in the NBA. They were never really challenged in the playoffs, either, winning 16 of 19 games on their way to the title. Then, they won 16 of their first 19 games in dominant fashion to start this season and the narrative set in that they were the class of the NBA.

For for the last month-and-a-half, as the sports world has worked its way through the end of the NFL season and the College Football Playoff, the mindset that the Celtics are still “champs in waiting” has persisted … largely under the radar. No one was really talking much about them, allowing their championship aura to largely go undented until their recent struggles.

Offense: An over-reliance on the 3-pointer

So, now people are paying a bit of attention. And if you look closer, there are some warning signs for these Celtics. They led the NBA in team offensive rating last season (123.2 points per 100 possessions). They still have the third-best offense in the NBA this season with 119.7 points per 100, but they are the only team in the NBA that shoots more from behind the arc (49.3 3PA) than inside the arc (41.6 2PA) each game. When the 3-pointers are going in, they can barrage teams right off the court. But against quality defenses, or when it’s just a cooler shooting night, the Celtics don’t currently have a balanced enough offense to be able to win those games.

And they just aren’t shooting all that efficiently from deep, ranking 15th in the NBA with a 36.2% team 3-point percentage. As a result, the East-leading Cavaliers are only making 1.7 fewer 3-pointers per game than the Celtics (16.2 3PG vs 17.9 3PG) even though the Cavs are taking almost nine fewer attempts per game (40.5 3PA vs 49.3 3PA). The Cavs have much more balance, featuring two all-star caliber big men in Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, in addition to their two all-star guards Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. As a result, they almost match the Celtics’ 3-point volume but also sport the best shooting percentages in the NBA from both inside (58.6 2P%) and outside (39.9 3P%) the arc.

Defense: The Thunder is better

And on the other end of the court, the Celtics have slid from third in the NBA in defensive rating last season to seventh (110.8 points allowed per 100 possessions), while their main competitor, the Thunder, are dominating the league on defense. Their Defensive Rating of 103.6 points allowed per 100 possessions is almost four points better than the second place Magic, and are a full seven points better than the Celtics.

The Thunder have maintained their dominant defense despite consistent injuries to either one or both of their star big men at the same time. Chet Holmgren was one of the leading shot-blockers in the NBA (2.6 BPG) before injuring his hip 10 games in, and Isaiah Hartenstein has been one of the leading rebounders in the NBA (12.2 RPG) in the 24 games he has played between injuries. But the Thunder haven’t had both their bigs together at any one time, and they throttled the Cavaliers on Thursday night despite having neither of their bigs.

Futures angles

Many don’t believe that what happens in the regular season matters, that it’s only the playoffs that count. And until the playoffs begin, the only memory people have of the Celtics is their dominant run to the championship. But the Cavaliers (+750) and the Thunder (+200) are both built to play with a style and effectiveness that has historically been better in the playoffs than what the Celtics have shown us this season with their reliance up on scoring 3s.

While the Celtics have earned their spot as one of the top three contenders for this season’s championship, their current odds don’t make them a good futures value compared to the other two. The Thunder are in the West, where there isn’t another dominant team this season, so they have a clearer path to the championship than the Celtics, and because they share a conference with the Cavaliers, Boston would have to potentially go through both Cleveland and Oklahoma City to win the championship.

The Thunder and Cavaliers are the better betting values

Given this path and that they still have longer odds, the Thunder have better value at +250 than the Celtics at +200. Meanwhile, the Cavs may not have the Celtics’ experience, but they’ve held their dominance for long enough to be at least the co-favorite from the Eastern Conference. However, they are getting significantly more juice than the Celtics right now, making them the best value among the three top contenders for the championship.

Source: espn.com