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Betting My Way Through The NBA Playoffs: Feeling Great About Golden State?

Derek Farnsworth Thu 6/9 7:38am PT
Stephen Curry and the Warriors could have some DFS GPP value on Thursday.
Image Credit: Imagn

ScoresAndOdds NBA betting expert Derek Farnsworth breaks down his Game 4 prediction for Boston vs. Golden State! Make sure to use our PrizePicks bonus and Caesars promo code to begin betting on the NBA Finals now!

As a Golden State backer, Game 3 was incredibly tough to watch. It’s hard to win basketball games when you give up dunks every other play in the first half, when you commit 16 turnovers, and when you give up 15 offensive rebounds. The Celtics had 11 more attempts from the field and nine more attempts from the free-throw line. It’s honestly a small miracle that the Warriors were able to close the gap in the third quarter, but basketball is a game of runs and it didn’t take the Celtics long to get back on track. 

The pressure is now firmly on the Warriors. The betting market is getting more and more confident in Boston, as they are listed as 4-point favorites in Game 4 and as -230 favorites in the series. 

Betting My Way Through The NBA Playoffs – Running Totals:

Game 4 Preview: Boston vs. Golden State

We all have biases when watching sports. Whether we have allegiances to teams or whether we have money on the game, it can be tough to be objective at times. Watching Game 3, I thought the Warriors got the more generous calls from the refs, which in theory makes the end result even worse. I’m starting to think I should have trusted the analytics prior to this series, but I’m not giving up hope yet. 

There were a lot of issues for Golden State on Wednesday, but they are all fixable moving forward. For starters, Boston was able to come up with most of the loose balls. Additionally, the Warriors were nothing short of awful in transition. There were at least three possessions where they had the numbers but were unable to capitalize and then gave up dunks on the other end. And finally, the rebounding edge in Game 3 is more likely an anomaly than something we can expect to continue the rest of the series. 

As noted in my Game 3 preview, I had a plan in place for the two games in Boston. I decided to bet on the Warriors ability to extend their amazing streak of winning at least one game on the road in each playoff series. My plan was to bet on them in Game 3 and then go back to the well in Game 4 if they lost the first one. My confidence isn’t as high heading into Friday’s game, but I have faith in Steve Kerr being able to make adjustments. 

I am personally going to bet on the moneyline, but the idea for this article was to bet on every spread. For that reason, give me Golden State +4.