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The 2022 NBA Playoffs reach the conference finals, and the betting action starts Tuesday, May 17, with Game 1 of the Eastern Conference series between Boston and Miami, so here’s the best Celtics vs. Heat betting pick.&nbsp;&nbsp;



According to <a href="https://www.bangthebook.com/sportsbooks/mybookie/">MyBookie Sportsbook</a>, Miami is a 2-point home fave for the opening clash. Boston is listed as a +110 moneyline underdog, while the totals sit at 205.5 points.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The Celtics have just eliminated the reigning champs&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



After sweeping the Brooklyn Nets in the first round, the No. 2 Boston Celtics needed seven games to eliminate the reigning champions, the Milwaukee Bucks, in the conference semifinals. Playing with their back against the wall in Game 6, the Celtics defeated the Bucks 108-95 as 1.5-point road dogs, while Game 7 saw Boston trounce Milwaukee 109-81 as a 5-point home fave.&nbsp;



Jayson Tatum and Al Horford led the way for the Celtics in the Bucks series. Tatum had 46 points in Game 6 and was averaging 27.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 5.4 assists throughout the series, while Horford was tallying 13.0 points, 10.4 boards, and 1.7 blocks per game.&nbsp;



The Celtics are coming to FTX Arena in full strength. Over the first two rounds, they were scoring 112.5 points per 100 possessions while surrendering 105.2 in a return. Boston was yielding only 99.7 points per 100 possessions over seven encounters with the Bucks.&nbsp;



The Heat look to justify the No. 1 seed&nbsp;



The No. 1 Miami Heat beat the Atlanta Hawks in five games in the first round. They toppled the Philadelphia 76ers in six games in the semifinals, winning the last two games of the series. After a 120-85 thrashing of the Sixers in Game 5 at home, the Heat finished the job with a 99-90 road victory.&nbsp;



Jimmy Butler was a key player for Miami in the previous round. He was racking up 27.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists a night while making 51.5% of his field goals. Tyler Herro was tallying 14.7 points per contest, while Bam Adebayo averaged 16.5 points and 7.5 rebounds.&nbsp;



Miami has scored 114.4 points per 100 possessions and yielded 104.6 in a return so far this postseason. The Heat can count on all their players besides Kyle Lowry, who’s struggling with a hamstring injury. Lowry didn’t practice on Sunday and will probably miss Game 1 against the Celtics, so Victor Oladipo should get more minutes off the bench. Oladipo is posting 11.4 points and 2.4 dimes in the postseason.&nbsp;



Trends:



Boston:



<ul><li>5-1 ATS in the last six games overall&nbsp;</li><li>9-0 ATS in the last nine games on the road&nbsp;</li></ul>



Miami:



<ul><li>6-13 ATS in the last 19 home games against Boston&nbsp;</li></ul>



Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat Pick&nbsp;



Kyle Lowry’s injury might be a problem for the Heat when they take on the Celtics’ stout defense. The absence of their starting PG could hurt Miami a lot, though the Heat own depth in their backcourt. On the other side, the Celtics will continue to lean on their defense that ranked first in the NBA in points allowed per 100 possessions last regular season.&nbsp;



Jimmy Butler will look to lock down Jayson Tatum, while the Celtics have a few options when it comes to defending the Heat’s best player. I’m looking for a dramatic Game 1 and will take the visitors because of their defense.&nbsp;



Back in the regular season, the Celtics have dismantled the Heat twice, 95-78 as a 6.5-point road dog and 122-92 as a 6.5-point home fave. Miami won their last duel on March 30 as a 5-point road underdog, 106-98.&nbsp;



Pick: Take Boston Celtics +2.0 at -110&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The Total:



I would be surprised if we see a high-scoring affair Tuesday, as both Boston and Miami are capable of playing excellent defense. Also, they prefer to play at a slow pace. The Celtics have averaged 96.6 possessions per 48 minutes in their 11 postseason contests, while the Heat have recorded only 93.4 over their 11 outings this postseason.&nbsp;



The under is 5-2 in Boston’s last seven games and 10-5 in its previous 15 contests played in May. On the flip side, nine of Miami’s last 11 games have gone under the total.&nbsp;



Pick: Go under 205.5 points at -110&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat Odds, Pick, Prediction 5/17/22

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Major League Baseball (MLB) might not be the most popular sport in the world to wager on, but it still presents a really good betting option. MLB betting comes in many different forms, and this is a season that presents plenty of betting opportunities as well.

Major League Baseball was founded all the way back in 1876, but the league has obviously gone through some major changes since that time. Most of the major rules are still in place, but the way that the game is played is now much different.

There are currently 30 teams in MLB, and every team plays 162 games during the regular season. MLB games typically start at the end of March, or early April, and the World Series wraps up during the first week of November.

MLB teams are split up into leagues and divisions, but there is now more crossover games than ever before. The American League and National League now operate under the same basic rules, and that keeps things similar regardless of what league you are looking at.

Knowing the best MLB betting sites &amp; sportsbooks is also important if you plan to bet on MLB, and this article will explore that as well. By the time you are done reading this article, you should be ready to bet on baseball.
<h2 id="h-where-to-bet-on-major-league-baseball" class="wp-block-heading">WHERE TO BET ON MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL</h2>
Here is a look at some of the best MLB sportsbooks that are out there in the industry:

Best MLB Betting Sites & Sportsbooks

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If the entirety of your sports knowledge doesn't reach farther back than ESPN SportsCenter, you may not realize that the Vegas Golden Knights were NOT the first team to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals in the first season of their existence.

I must admit being around in 1968 when the fledgling St. Louis Blues, one of six teams added to the National Hockey League at once, went to the Finals as a first-year expansion club, but then again, SOME first-year expansion team had to get there, since someone in the NHL office, in their infinite wisdom, decided that in order to bolster interest in the new "Western Division," which included such western outposts as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, it would not only be a grand idea to have four of the expansion teams make the playoffs, but for one of them to be playing for the Stanley Cup.

The Blues got to the final round on the strength of the Hall of Fame goaltender Glenn Hall, left unprotected in the expansion draft by Chicago but still plenty sharp enough to win the Conn Smythe Trophy, even with a losing team. St. Louis got swept by the Montreal Canadiens, but they were competitive to be certain, losing those four games by only a single goal. Hall was joined the next season by another Hall of Fame goalie, Jacques Plante, who came out of retirement to help the Blues get to the Stanley Cup Finals the next two seasons as well.

However, those appearances all resulted in 4-0 sweeps, so this franchise never won a game in the Finals until this season.

Now they can win it all.

But they will have to rebound from what might best be termed as a moribund performance in Game 6, as the Boston Bruins did an "I'm your daddy" all over them to the tune of 5-1, forcing a Game 7 at the TD Garden. The first puck drops at 8:05 PM ET on NBC, and these are the lines as of Wednesday morning, with the Bruins favored:

Boston Bruins -165
St. Louis Blues +155

Bruins -1.5 Goals +175
Blues +1.5 Goals -190

Under 5.5 Goals -145
Over 5.5 Goals +135

Those odds are infused with reduced juice at <a href="http://betanysports.eu/btb50/">BetAnySports</a>, so the numbers definitely tighten up, as you can see. It is the most value-added deal in the online sportsbook industry, so take advantage of it by going to the website.

Okay, let's mention a few things first. The home team has won 12 out of 16 times when there has been a Game 7. But at the same time, over the last fifteen seasons, that percentage has been less than 53%. And while the Bruins aren't necessarily feasting on the home ice "advantage" during this post-season, the Blues are 9-3 on the road. That includes two win at the TD Garden. So I wouldn't be rushing up to the windows to play this based on the venue.

Most observers would agree that the Blues are formidable, perhaps even imposing, when they are on the forecheck, playing a physical game and taking no prisoners. For whatever reason, they seemed to stray from that in Game 6, when they could have wrapped things up at the Enterprise Center. They tried to "finesse" things too much, and that's a little more the Bruins' game. And once they were struggling early, that opened up all kinds of possibilities for Boston.

The Bruins have been propelled throughout the playoffs by goaltender Tuukka Rask, who has posted a .925 save percentage in these finals, just a wee bit off his pace coming into this series but sizzling nonetheless, to the extent that there is a growing constituency that would vote him the Conn Smythe winner even of the Bruins didn't come away with a victory on Wednesday.

Surely Boston could use more production out of its #1 line. For what it's worth, during the regular season, Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak averaged 1.27, 1.21 and 1.23 points per game respectively, but here in the Stanley Cup Finals (albeit in an admittedly small sample size), those numbers are 0.83, 0.50 and 0.66.

But look - St. Louis has been concentrating on bottling up the big guns defensively, and they are making the Bruins work extra hard to get it out of their own zone. At the same time, we've got Rask, who's been pretty tough to penetrate.

And that brings us to the total. Yeah, we know you're going to tell us that in these finals, four of the six games have gone over the total. But we're here to tell you that this is the exception rather then the rule. In fact, when you get to this round, the "under" has hit better than 60% of the time over the last fifteen seasons.

And when you get to the all-or-nothing game, things tend to tighten up even further. It would seem to make sense that the referees are going to be careful not to turn a deciding game around on one blow of a whistle, and the numbers over a thirty-year period would seem to bear that out, as there have been 45% fewer penalty minutes called in Game 7 on average than in any of the other games in the series. Fewer penalties means fewer power plays, and, over the course of time, fewer prime scoring opportunities.

Would you like to know how long it's been since Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals produced more than five goals? It was 1950, before something called the Korean War broke out.

They didn't cover that one on SportsCenter.

Six goals or more didn't happen before that and hasn't happened since (sample size = 16).

So with two excellent defensive teams and everything on the line, will we see a style of game that prompts me to look "under"?

You bet. I bet.

Let's all bet.

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Stanley Cup Finals Betting -- Game 7: We're Following History.... And Plenty Of It