posted May 20, 2008 at 13:51 in NBA Betting Trends

This is the Eastern Conference finals sports betting matchup that the NBA betting community has been waiting for. And yet it almost didn’t happen.

The Boston Celtics came perilously close to losing their way to the championship. They failed to win a road game in either of the first two rounds, and they come into their series against the Detroit Pistons with a record of 5-9 against the sports betting spread in the playoffs. The Pistons had some work of their own to do before reaching this point, but are an online betting 7-4 ATS and well rested after eliminating the Orlando Magic a week ago.

Detroit earned its time off by doing what no other team did in the Eastern semis: win a road game. That was Game 4 against the Magic, when Rodney Stuckey and Lindsey Hunter were good enough in place of injured point guard Chauncey Billups to lead the Pistons (+5.5) to a 90-89 victory. Billups skipped the next game to rest his injured hamstring and now appears to be at full health for Tuesday’s series opener at the Garden.

Boston is a –140 favorite in this series and a 4.5-point chalk for Game 1. The total is 174 points. We should see even more suffocating defense in the Eastern finals after the under went 3-0 between these two teams during the regular season, with the final scores adding up to 172, 177 and 168. Boston went 2-1 straight up and ATS; however, none of these three games featured the additions of Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown to the Celtics lineup. Although Cassell has sputtered out, Brown was a major contributor off the bench against the Cleveland Cavaliers. His 10 points (on 4-for-4 shooting) in Sunday’s Game 7 broke Cleveland’s back.

If home-court proves as valuable in the Conference finals as it did in the last round, the Pistons will have to dig deep to win at the Garden. Only six teams have done it this year, but one of them was Detroit, who won 87-85 back in December. The NBA odds at the time had the Pistons as 6-point underdogs. They’re in a stronger position now after posting one of the best away records in the league at 28-18 (22-23-1 ATS).

Tip-off for Tuesday’s Game 1 is 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time on ESPN.

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