NBA Betting Guide for Monday 5/23/22: Which Squad Will Overcome Their Injuries to Win Game 4?

Both the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics have significant traffic on the injury report entering Monday's Game 4. Will Miami take both games in Boston, or can the C's even the series?

Betting on the NBA can be tricky, but you can rely on numberFire to help. We have a detailed betting algorithm that projects out games to see how often certain betting lines hit. You can also track spread bet percentages at FanDuel Sportsbook.

Where do our algorithm, our power rankings, and the betting trends identify value in tonight's game? All odds are from FanDuel Sportsbook, and all ratings are out of five stars.

Heat +7 (-110) -- 1 Star

The consensus is that the Celtics are likely to get back on track tonight. The numberFire model believes Boston wins Game 4 a whopping 70.8% of the time.

However, the model also points me in the direction of this bet. It's not showing very strong conviction in Miami, giving them just a 54.2% chance to cover. Tyler Herro was ruled out due to injury, and that jumped this spread to 7.0 points, which only helps the cause to potentially push at seven exactly. Herro's been a non-factor as is, logging just 20 minutes on Saturday.

That still beats 52.5% implied odds in this space.

The most similar games in numberFire's model back this verdict up, as well. An astounding 15 of the 20 most similar games to this one in our database saw the underdog (in this case, Miami) covering the spread.

A Miami cover with a Boston outright win would buck a recent trend in NBA betting, though. The team that's won the game outright has covered the spread in every single Conference Finals game thus far.

Yes on FanDuel Sportsbook's 3x2 (+104)

FanDuel Sportsbook offers a fun instant bet for any NBA game.

It's called a "3x2," which equates to two three-pointers being made in the first three minutes of the game. These two squads are prime candidates to cash that every single night.

In the playoffs thus far, both are top-nine squads in first-quarter three-point attempts. We've seen that in this series. The 3x2 has cashed in two of the three games, and in the lone exception, three attempts in the correct span were missed. These squads are averaging 3.7 combined three-point attempts in the first three minutes of this series so far.

In totality, these two teams are averaging 9.0 first-quarter triples on 16.0 attempts in the series. Averaging that out to just a quarter of a quarter -- say that three times fast -- results in 2.3 makes on 4.0 attempts.

With just 49% implied odds, this bet is a good one between these two teams until the price shifts.

Swaim-Game Parlay (+490)

Celtics ML
Jaylen Brown Over 22.5 Points
Grant Williams 2+ Threes Made
Max Strus Over 10.5 Points
Jimmy Butler 1+ Steals

Just one game a day means it's Same-Game Parlay season now more than ever on FanDuel Sportsbook. For some fun, I drop 0.25 units a day on one to see if it hits. Feel free to tail mine...or create your own!

With such overwhelming odds they win this evening, Celtics ML (-310) is the cornerstone of today's parlay.

Jaylen Brown right now is leading the C's offense. He's got a higher usage rate (29.0%) than Jayson Tatum, and his 54.7% field-goal rate has been lethally efficient. Given that he's eclipsed 24 points in all three games this series, Jaylen Brown Over 22.5 Points (-192) seems like a safe way to get exposure to his offense.

There's definitely been a correlation to Boston winning and getting Grant Williams more involved from deep this postseason. Williams has averaged 13.7 points in Boston's nine wins during the playoffs. He's scored 56.3% of his points from the three-point arc in that span, so if he's nearing double figures once more in a Celtics dub, Grant Williams 2+ Threes (-134) feels like a lead-pipe lock.

The biggest beneficiary of the Herro injury is Max Strus. Strus averaged 16.7 points per 36 minutes without Herro in the regular season, and he's in line for a much safer and larger role without his backup. numberFire's model has Strus pegged at a median of 12.6 points, but I'll play it safe and take Max Strus Over 10.5 Points (-250).

Finally, Jimmy Butler is expected to return, and the defensive menace is a nice final addition here. Butler has recorded a steal in nine straight games, and he's projected by numberFire for a pair today. Again, I won't be greedy, but rather I'll add Jimmy Butler 1+ Steals (-590) to get us closer to our desired +500 pricepoint with one hit per week as the goal.