After another double-digit victory on Monday, the Celtics are now up 3-1 over the Heat and can advance to the second round tonight. They will have to do so without Kristaps Porzingis.
Meanwhile, after an epic Game 4, the Mavericks and Clippers return to Los Angeles with the series even at two. Kyrie Irving's valiant scoring effort fell short on Sunday afternoon, but he may have 30 points in him again tonight.
NBA Player Props Today: Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, Kyrie Irving (May 1)
In the regular season, Jayson Tatum led the Celtics in scoring with 26.9 points. However, despite his scoring prowess, there are many nights when he does not have to force things because of the talent around him. That has carried over to the postseason thus far.
Tatum is still leading the Celtics in scoring in this series at 23.3 points per game. However, Jaylen Brown (22.3) and Derrick White (21.8) are right on his heels. Brown and White have each had a 30-point game in this series, but Tatum is still looking for his first.
Tatum has scored 20 points in all four games in this series, but he has only surpassed this projection in one of those games, scoring exactly 28 points. That was the only game that he shot over 50% from the field. Even with Porzingis playing just 14 minutes in Game 4, Tatum still only finished with 20 points.
Additionally, this series has not been very high-scoring. Game 2 had 212 points scored, and the total is 200.5 points tonight. In their three wins, the Celtics had four players in double digits and four players with 15 points in the other two. Another balanced scoring effort tonight may see Tatum finish closer to 20 points tonight than 28.
As mentioned, White is averaging over 20 points per game in this series, which is up from his season average of 15.2 to go along with 5.2 assists. With White being more aggressive in looking for his shot, his assists have gone down in this series.
White has had not five assists in any game in this series. Dating back to last season, he has had five assists in just one of his last 11 postseason games against Miami and is averaging 2.5 per game. In Game 4, White played 41 minutes and had just three assists. Instead, he attempted 26 shots and scored 38 points. That followed Game 3, in which he took 14 shots and scored 16 points.
White is third on the Celtics in assists this series at 3.5 per game. Tatum has had five assists in three of the first four games while Jrue Holiday has had six in each of the last two games. Even Payton Pritchard is averaging three assists per game while playing 13 minutes fewer per game than White.
White has been looking to attack in this series, averaging just 6.3 potential assists in this series, which is also third behind Tatum and Holiday. If White has six potential assists tonight, he would need to convert 83% of them to reach five, and that's highly unlikely.
In a series with potentially six future Hall of Famers, there's a strong argument to be made that Kyrie Irving has been the best player in this series. Through the first four games, Irving is averaging 28.8 points while shooting 51% from the field, 48.5% from 3-point range and 90.5% from the free throw line. Irving hit this over in Games 1 and 4, including when he dropped 40 on Sunday.
Despite how well Irving is playing, he has scored just six points and taken just 12 field goal attempts in the first quarter. Typically, that's Luka Doncic's show, and Irving picks it up as the game goes on. I bring this up because you may able to catch his points live as low as 19.5 points if he starts slowly again. Irving has scored at least 21 points in all four games.
However, it would also benefit Dallas if he started faster tonight. While those were his highest-scoring games in this series, the Mavericks trailed by 26 points at halftime in Game 1 and by 31 in the first half of Game 4. Dallas made a rally in both games and even led with two minutes left in Game 4 but would help itself by not needing to exert so much energy just to get back in the game.
With a win tonight, the Mavericks can return home and close out the Clippers on Friday night. They're favored by 3.5 points tonight with Kawhi Leonard out but will need a strong effort from Irving to pull out a win.
The Clippers offense has looked more fluid without Leonard, but taking him off the floor does not make their defense better. With all the attention on Doncic, Irving gets the more favorable matchup of the two while also being healthier right now.
I like Irving's chances to take advantage tonight. You can also back him for 30 points at +170 and 35 points at +600 on FanDuel.
