Dallas Can Absolutely Beat Boston: Here's Why
Who is going to win the 2024 NBA Championship?
It should be the Boston Celtics, right?
… Right?!?
The market is telling us that it's Boston, numbers are telling us it's Boston, but our collective eye test has been wrestling with the advanced metrics all season.
The Celtics won the Eastern Conference by 14 games and clinched the No. 1 seed on March 25, the largest NBA conference win since 1976. Their 1.22 points per possession and 122.2 offensive rating are the best in NBA history. They have four two-game losing streaks all season, and none for any longer. They allowed the fewest amount of free throws in the regular season of any team ever (1,182) and are doing the same in the playoffs.
They're the most talented team in the league and even with Kristaps Porzingis' cloudy health situation, the shortest NBA Finals exact series results odds are Celtics in five at +300.
Boston's biggest detractors would, rightfully so, point out the cupcake schedule they played to get back to the NBA Finals for the second time in three years.
No Jimmy Butler or Terry Rozier in Round 1. Hardly a healthy Duncan Robinson, too. No potential match-up with a healthy Milwaukee side because there was no Giannis Antetokounmpo in the playoffs, and Damian Lillard also missed time. No Donovan Mitchell in the last two games of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. No Caris LeVert in the last. And no Jarrett Allen at all.
And yes, you play who is in front of you. As someone who covers boxing, where near;y everyone's record is inflated, I get it. Boston is clearly worthy of being in the Finals, but are we overvaluing their dominance given that the Dallas Mavericks are the first healthy team Boston has seen in several weeks?
In the Eastern Conference Finals, Tyrese Haliburton missed the last two games. If he were there, maybe the Celtics still win, or maybe, just maybe, the Pacers don't do as much dumb stuff down the stretch, like commit nine turnovers in 19 clutch minutes in the series.
Additionally, regular season dominance doesn't always buy a title.
The Celtics had an 11.6 net rating, the best in the league. The last team to lead the NBA in net rating and actually win the title was the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors — the first with Kevin Durant, who joined a 73-win team that lost in the previous NBA Finals.
Over the past 25 years — since the 1999-00 season — the 2014-15 Warriors, 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs, 2007-08 Celtics, 2006-07 Spurs, 04-05 Spurs and the 1999-00 Los Angeles Lakers are the only other teams to accomplish this. In essence, the best regular season team went on to win the NBA title just seven times in the past 25 years.
Similarly, the 2018 Warriors are also the last team to lead in regular season true shooting percentage and go on to win the title.
Who led the league in net rating last year? The Celtics. In 2021-22? The Celtics, in a tie with the 64-win Phoenix Suns, who were embarrassed in Round 2 of the playoffs against an underdog who had, you know, an actual healthy team led by a healthy star.
That healthy star was Luka Doncic, the terrifying Slovenian sniper with a diabolical grin, who is a road assassin and one of two players in NBA history to average 30 or more points per game in the playoffs.
The other is Michael Jordan.
Doncic is definitively the best player in the finals, and his co-star, Kyrie Irving, is either third or fourth. After that, it's a Celtics run until you get to Dereck Lively II, but from there, the Mavericks are deeper than you think.
Porzingis will be 38 days removed from his calf injury by Game 1. Durant, who strained his calf in the 2019 playoffs, came back after a 33-day absence and almost immediately destroyed his Achilles in the NBA Finals. Antetokounmpo strained his on April 9 against the Celtics and "wasn't close" to returning by the time the Bucks were eliminated on May 2, 23 days later.
Porzingis is Boston's biggest x-factor and we just can't assume he'll be awesome right away, though he is expected to play in Game 1.
This is the best team Dallas has assembled around Doncic. Irving is an all-time No. 2 when next to the arguably best player in the league. He's also the second-best shot creator in this series. The rangy Derrick Jones Jr. will be a primary defender on Boston's wings, and he's hitting about 40% from 3 in the playoffs. Maxi Kleber's return will help spread out Boston's defense and try to tilt the balance toward Dallas from the perimeter.
Lively and Daniel Gafford will wreak havoc on the interior so long as they remain out of foul trouble. P.J. Washington will be another big two-way component in the series because of his shooting and wing defense. The Celtics don't play big, they play the math.
In the playoffs, their free-throw rate is .239, up from .224 in the regular season, which was tied for the sixth worst in the NBA. That .224 would mark the worst free-throw rate for a champion since the 1972-73 Knicks, who didn't have a 3-point shot.
That 3-point shot is what Boston is banking on. The Celtics want to win the math battle. Boston led the NBA in 3-point attempt rate in the regular season (47.1%). You'll never guess who was second.
That's right, the Dallas Mavericks (44.1%). In the playoffs, Boston is at 47.4% and Dallas down to 40.9%. That's largely due to match-ups and the Mavericks reimagining their roster in February. Both teams have conceded around 39% of their opponents' shot attempts from 3 in the playoffs.
However, it's worth noting that the Mavericks were fifth in net rating since reshaping their team at the trade deadline.
But really, this is more about what we can watch than what we can research. The Mavs beat three 50-win teams, and only Kawhi Leonard was the big injury break. The Mavs were better down the stretch of the season, and some of us had them winning (and getting to the Western Conference Finals) regardless.
The three teams: The alleged superteam in Los Angeles (not the purple and gold one) y'all were giving the Western Conference back in January, the No. 1 seed and the team with the best defense. Dallas is battle tested, has — at worst — the second-best player in the world and won the better conference.
The Celtics are the best team and should win this series, but the frustration with their greatness is just that they don't always do what they "should." They’re 18-15 at home in the playoffs since the 2020-21 season and were 12-13 before going 6-2 against the depleted East this year.
Doncic is the underdog, but if he's a true all-time great, the Mavs have a better chance than the masses may realize.
I Have A Dallas 30/1 Ticket: Is It Time To Hedge?
By Joe Dellera
One of the primary analyses when deciding whether to hedge or cash out is obviously the on-court basketball angle. However, we should also try and determine if it actually makes sense from a math and bankroll perspective.
Rarely is the cash out value from sportsbooks what the ticket is actually worth. Many books don't even offer a same value cash out price from the second you press “bet.”
Cashing out a bet for a profit (or loss) is generally just a more convenient way to complete the wager, but it has it’s costs. It can be better to sell the ticket in a marketplace or just hedge it yourself.
When I say sell the ticket in a marketplace, I’m referencing panpanies such as PropSwap, where other bettors can “buy” your ticket. This recently made waves with the Oklahoma City Thunder $1 million parlay individual because PropSwap said he could have made an extra $120k had he sold through their service. That obviously misses the issue that you actually need to have a buyer because, in a time-sensitive market, something is only worth what someone will actually pay for it.
Here, the question about whether to hedge the Mavericks ticket is an interesting one because Boston is such a heavy favorite. First, you need to line shop and find the best price on the hedge piece. At the time of this writing, the shortest price for Boston is -210 at DraftKings. We have a hedging calculator here at Action Network and I’ll use that to demonstrate.
If you put one unit on Dallas at 30/1, you would need to wager 21 units on Boston at -210 to ensure a profit of nine units regardless of the outcome.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that this significantly cuts into your potential profits and that you are giving away all of the EV from your bet.
On the other hand, if you have a Boston ticket and are considering hedging with Dallas (+180), my first recommendation would be to hedge with Luka Doncic MVP (+210). Secondly, the positioning is advantageous if you are concerned about the Celtics. If you had Boston at (+350) for one unit, you could bet 1.45 units on Doncic to win MVP and secure a profit each way.
Furthermore, most people do not bet just one future for one team every season. So, when you’re going into the analysis of whether it makes sense to hedge, you need to think about it in terms of your overall portfolio.
If you bet 10 units on NBA title futures, but just one on the Mavericks and none on the Celtics, you would still be in a losing position to hedge with Boston. It may feel like you’re locking in a win, but overall, you’d be down on the season. While that is fine to take as a position if you truly don't think Dallas is going to win and would rather have a one-unit loss than a 10-unit loss on the season, it's important to remember that those other dead futures remain a hit to your bankroll, even if you bet them months ago.
The margins on a hedge got even thinner as the Mavericks’ odds decreased when they advanced through the playoffs. If you grabbed Dallas at +500, you would need to hedge 4.06 units just to lock in 0.94 units as a profit.
I generally do not think it is a good practice to hedge for the sake of hedging. If it is life changing money, then there can be personal value in doing so. However, in a vacuum, you are giving up the best of the number, which you were able to grab at a prior time. The one instance where I understand a hedge would really be to buy off of a position because your handicap changed, but still allowing you to maintain a profit. Here, if you would want to have bet Boston and think the Mavericks ticket is dead, you could use the anticipated profits to bet on Boston instead since you'd know the stake is covered.
This simply is not a great time to be hedging against the Celtics.
