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The 2024 NBA Finals are set to begin Thursday night with the top overall seed Celtics hosting the fifth-seeded Mavericks from the West, who have made good on all the talk that they were the scariest lower-seeded team coming into these playoffs. The Celtics, who eliminated the Heat, Cavaliers and Pacers en route to the Finals, is slotted as the favorite to win this series.
Boston is listed as a -220 favorite to take home the title, but that feels a bit too rich for my blood. In fact, I think the Mavericks, who took out the Clippers, Thunder and Timberwolves on their path through the West, are going to win this series because of their two late-game magicians in Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
Reasonable minds can obviously disagree on this, which brings us to our Finals predictions. Below are our CBS Sports staff picks, and the one thing you’ll notice right away is nobody has this series going fewer than six games. Personally, I went Mavs in seven. It’s going to be a close one either way. Here’s how we see it shaping up.
2024 NBA Finals staff predictions
Botkin: Mavericks in 7. I’m riding the Luka and Kyrie train. I can’t help it. I don’t know if I’m a prisoner of the moment, but this is going to be a tight series full of tight games and I simply trust these two to close games out in a way I don’t trust the Celtics collectively. I won’t argue with anyone who disagrees with me on this pick. This is a coin flip. But I just can’t get past the greatness of Luka and Kyrie and the legitimacy of this Mavs defense with Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II at the rim.
Herbert: Celtics in 6. If Kristaps Porzingis is the same guy he was before his calf injury, Boston should be able to spread Dallas out the way nobody else has in these playoffs. This matchup will test the Celtics in new ways, too, but everything they’ve done this season — the cross-matches, the ball pressure, the opportunistic post-ups — should have prepared them for this. I understand if you’re hesitant to trust that Porzingis will be himself, and I understand being wary of Boston’s…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/2024-nba-finals-predictions-celtics-vs-mavericks-picks-with-experts-split-on-title-matchup/
Author : Brad Botkin
Publish date : 2024-06-04 12:09:10
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