NBA Playoff Betting – (7) Celtics at (2) Cavaliers (Game 2)

Boston Celtics at Cleveland Cavaliers (-11, 207 o/u)

The Cleveland Cavaliers (1-0, 1-0 home) suffered a scare early in Game 1 against the Boston Celtics (0-1, 0-1 away), finding themselves down four at the end of the first quarter. But, in the end, the “Big 3” were just that and the Cavs pulled away for a 113-100 win. Tonight, Cleveland will look to take a commanding 2-0 series lead when they host the Celtics at Quicken Loans Arena (7:00 PM Eastern).

LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love all had big games for the Cavaliers on the weekend. Irving led the team in scoring with 30 points on 11/21 shooting; James added 20 points and seven assists; and Love put up 19 points while hauling in 12 boards.

James, whose relationship with Love has seemed strained at times this year, praised the power forward’s play in Game 1.

“It’s very important that Kev stays involved,” James said about Love. “For our ultimate goal, Kevin has to be in the rhythm or at least touching the ball and feel like he’s a part of what we’re doing, which he is.

“Even with Kev’s shot not falling early, I felt like just the rhythm he was in, the aggressive mode he was in will pay off for us later.”

After the setback on Saturday, Boston coach Brad Stevens is coming to the realization that it’s going to take a perfect game to top Cleveland at home.

“They make you pick your poison,” said the coach. “We have to pay attention to LeBron. We have to pay attention to Love and Irving. Your margin is greatly decreased when you’re playing a team of this caliber.”

The silver lining in the loss was that Isaiah Thomas continued his strong play since coming over in a trade from Phoenix. The sixth-man put in 22 points and dished out ten dimes in the loss.

The squad will need a similar performance in Game 2 if it’s going to pull the upset, along with a better effort from Avery Bradley. The guard, who averaged nearly 14 points per game during the regular season, managed just seven on 3/10 shooting in Game 1.

In the trends, Boston is 2-6 ATS in its last eight games on the road against Cleveland. The Cavs have posted three straight overs while the last two for the Celtics have gone over. But the o/u is at a fairly high 207 and Cleveland has one of the better defenses in the league. Look for this hard-fought playoff game to stay under the total.

(Photo credit: By Erik Drost from United States (Kyrie Irving  Uploaded by Dudek1337) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)