The Boston Celtics are currently the odds-on favorite to win the Eastern Conference (-130) at ESPN BET, and Celtics guard Payton Pritchard is the favorite to win Sixth Man of the Year (-550). Should you buy or fade these two markets heading into Wednesday night’s prime-time clash against the Phoenix Suns on ESPN? There are two picks that might offer more value to bettors as the regular season nears its end.
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Fade: Celtics to win the Eastern Conference (-130)
The Celtics have the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, sitting five games back of the Cleveland Cavaliers with 10 games remaining. Barring something epic, the Cavs will finish the season as the top seed and secure home-court advantage through the playoffs. While the Celtics are an excellent road team (29-7, tied for tops in the league), the Cavaliers have the best home record in the NBA at 30-5. The home-court edge would be a tangible benefit to them in the playoffs.
The Cavaliers have been better than the Celtics in just about every metric this season, including the ones that typically correlate with playoff success. The Cavaliers have a higher scoring differential, outscoring their opponents by 10.4 PPG on average versus the Celtics’ +8.8-point margin. According to the ESPN Basketball Power Index (BPI), the Cavaliers have a BPI of 7.9, better than the Celtics’ 7.0. Utilizing BPI, the Cavaliers have a higher likelihood than the Celtics of making the conference semifinals (94.8% for the Cavs vs. 91.6% for the Celtics), the Conference finals (82.5% vs. 71.0%) and the NBA Finals (54.8% vs. 34.0%).
The Cavaliers are balanced on offense, with Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland as elite playmakers in the backcourt and two elite big men in Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen in the frontcourt. They also have an array of wings that specialize in shooting and/or defense, led by Max Strus, De’Andre Hunter, Ty Jerome and Sam Merrill. The Cavs have the most efficient offense in the NBA and one of the more efficient in history, leading the league in both 2-point FG% (58.3 2P%) and 3-point FG% (38.5 3P%). They do this while playing at a moderate pace (99.8 possessions per game, just over the league average of 98.9 possessions per game), which suggests they aren’t goosing their percentages by running a lot of fast breaks. Instead, their half-court offense generates the high-percentage looks that make their offense so efficient. This is key in the playoffs, where the style of play leans more toward half-court than fast breaks.
Finally, in their head-to-head matchups, the Cavaliers seem to have the biggest player mismatch advantage in Mitchell. He has been near unstoppable against the Celtics in both the regular season and the playoffs over his career. In his past 10 games against the Celtics, including last season’s playoffs, Mitchell has averaged 33.7 PPG (49.0 FG%, 40.9 3P%), 7.2 RPG and 4.6 APG. The Celtics are elite at defending big wings, but they have more trouble against smaller, quicker guards that can generate points on both the inside and outside the way Mitchell does.
Cleveland has been the better team this season and wins in ways that both stylistically and quantitatively suggest future success in the playoffs. Thus, the best bet to make right now is to fade the Celtics to win the Eastern Conference at -130 and bet on the Cavaliers at +165.
Fade: Payton Pritchard to win Sixth Man of the Year (-550)
Prtichard’s odds to win this award are so short that there is no practical reason to bet on him. You would have to bet 5.5 units to win 1, with a month-plus before a potential payout. The odds suggest Pritchard should be the runaway winner.
But … should he?
Pritchard specializes in 3-point shooting and perimeter defense in his role off the bench. He excels in that role, but his biggest competitors for this award play similar roles for their teams and have at least comparable success metrics. De’Andre Hunter (22-1) and Malik Beasley (4-1) also come off the bench to stretch the floor and, in Hunter’s case in particular, play strong defense. Here is each player’s averages on the season:
Pritchard: 14.3 PPG (46.8 FG%, 41.7 3P%), 3.7 RPG, 0.9 SPG
Hunter: 17.3 PPG (47.2 FG%, 41.4 3P%), 4.0 RPG, 0.7 SPG
Beasley: 16.2 PPG (43.7 FG%, 42.1 3P%), 2.7 RPG, 0.9 SPG
Hunter is outscoring Pritchard significantly on almost identical shooting efficiency both from the field and behind the arc. And Hunter’s size, listed at 6-foot-8 and 225 pounds, gives him a defensive versatility beyond that of the smaller Pritchard (6-foot-1, 195 pounds). Pritchard has the ability to defend larger than his size, but Hunter can defend from point guard to power forward and does so on a regular basis.
Pritchard’s biggest advantage over Hunter is in games played, with Pritchard entering Wednesday with 71 games played versus Hunter’s 56. Beasley has 73 games played to date. But Hunter is still on pace to play in the 65 games required to be eligible for many season awards, and the Sixth Man of the Year doesn’t have a minimum games requirement anyway. Hunter has also played strong roles on two teams both on pace to make the postseason, starting off with the Atlanta Hawks and ending the season as the key midseason acquisition for the top-seeded Cavaliers.
According to basketball-reference, both Pritchard and Hunter are elite at producing extra points per game based on their scoring efficiency. Pritchard adds 1.38 points per game based on his True Shooting Percentage Added (TS Add), but Hunter has been even better by adding 1.54 points per game via TS Add. Beasley trails both, by a significant margin, with only 0.53 TS Add per game.
While Pritchard has been excellent at his 3-and-D role on a strong Celtics squad, Hunter has arguably been even better. Over the past 15 seasons, the Sixth Man of the Year has averaged 17.4 PPG on teams that averaged 52.1 wins. By these metrics, Hunter fits the typical profile better than either Pritchard or Beasley. The fact that Hunter is getting genuine long-shot odds at 22-to-1 while Pritchard’s odds are juiced at -550 and even Beasley is getting much shorter odds clinches this bet. Hunter (22-1) is the only choice to consider in this market.
