The Miami Heat continue to torture the Boston Celtics at home in the playoffs.
Last season, the Heat stunned the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. Wednesday night, the Heat upset the Celtics in Boston as double-digit underdogs in Game 2 of their series and will head back to Miami with a split for Games 3 and 4.
The Celtics have now lost four games this season as a double-digit favorite and are the first team since the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020 to lose as a favorite of 10 points or more in a playoff game.
The Celtics closed as 14.5-point favorites at tipoff and only two other teams have suffered an outright loss as a bigger favorite since the 2005 postseason, according to Bet Labs: Cavaliers -15.5 vs Celtics in 2017 and Warriors -15 vs Clippers in 2019.
In fact, the Celtics losing as favorites has been a theme over their past three postseason runs.
Over the last three years in the playoffs, the Celtics are now 10-11 SU as favorites of 5+ points.
The rest of the NBA is 62-20 (76%) in that spot — Boston has 36% of those total playoff losses. pic.twitter.com/v5SjCu2FgV
— Evan Abrams (@EvanHAbrams) April 25, 2024
Six of those 11 losses as 5-point favorites for the Celtics have come against the Heat over that span. The Heat pulled off today's win by hitting a franchise-record 23 3-pointers. Despite missing Jimmy Butler, the Heat had three different starters score 20-plus points in the win — Tyler Herro (24), Bam Adebayo (21), and Caleb Martin (21).
The Heat opened as 7.5-point 'dogs at home in Game 3 Saturday at DraftKings and moved to 8-point underdogs, according to Action Network's public betting data.
