The Celtics are up 3-1 over the Heat and can advance to the second round with a win over Miami tonight. They will have to do so without Kristaps Porzingis, but I still expect Jayson Tatum to struggle to hit his point total in this Game 5 showdown.
Let's dive into my top NBA PrizePicks prediction for Heat vs. Celtics tonight (7:30 p.m. ET | TNT) on Wednesday, May 1.
NBA PrizePicks Tonight: Heat vs. Celtics Prediction
In the regular season, Jayson Tatum led the Celtics in scoring with 26.9 points per game. But despite his scoring prowess, there are many nights where 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 PPG. 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, meanwhile Tatum is still looking for his first.
Tatum has scored 20 points in all four games in this series. However, he has only surpassed this projection in one of those games and landed exactly at 28 points in that contest. That was the lone game he shot above 50% from the field thus far. 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 saw the highest total with 212 points and the total is 200.5 points tonight. In its three wins, Boston had four players in double digits and four players with 15 points in two of them. Another balanced scoring effort tonight may see Tatum finish closer to 20 points than 28 points tonight.
I'm backing Tatum to put up less than 27.5 points tonight (-118 at PrizePicks).
