2024 NBA playoffs - Bets, lines and stats for Monday - ESPN

We have the final Monday double-header of the NBA season tonight; by next Monday the conference semifinals will be over and we'll be down to a game per night. Both of tonight's series' are currently 2-1, with the leading team in the series favored to go up 3-1.

Let's dig more into each matchup to identify some angles of interest for players and/or teams to outproduce expectation.

Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers over 206.5 total points (-115). The Celtics held the Cavaliers to 93 points in Game 3, and one team or the other has scored between 93 and 95 points in all three playoffs games. But in Game 3, the Celtics also scored only 106 points, the lowest point total for a winner in this series. If we include the three regular season matchups as well, Game 3 was the only of the six where the combined point total wasn't over 206.5 points. After averaging a combined 221.7 PPG in three regular season matchups, these teams averaged 214.5 combined points in Games 1 and 2 before the Game 3 clunker.

I expect a scoring bounce-back on Monday, with the Cavaliers not-named-Donovan Mitchell scoring better and the Celtics producing a more typical scoring performance as well. Per BPI, the projected scoring total for Game 4 is 209 points.

Donovan Mitchell over 29.5 points (-125). Mitchell is the one scoring constant on both teams. The other Cavaliers are inconsistent, and the Celtics tend to distribute their scoring among several star caliber players so the leader alternates from game-to-game.

But Mitchell is always there. In five games against the Celtics this season, three in the playoffs and two in the regular season, Mitchell has scored between 29 and 33 points in all five games with an average of exactly 31.0 PPG. The Cavaliers