By Dan Rivera
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The playoffs are a different sports betting animal, there's simply no other way to put. These lines get super efficient and a half point here or half point there can truly affect the outcome of your bets. A lot of people like to use regular season matchups for handicapping the playoffs, but we're honestly not a big fan of it.
We're not a fan of it because we all know the regular season has its issue with teams not trying in all the games or teams with unequal rest facing off, and we see higher variance because of that. In the playoffs you see the same team over a 12-14 day period with the same amount of rest between games and with minutes being consistently spread out. With that being said, let’s dive into these two Eastern Conference teams and see what we can glean from the 2021 playoffs in order to make smarter, more profitable bets.
Milwaukee Bucks
Just like we all expected - Nets can’t stay healthy and leaving a path for Giannis to the ECF, am I right?
The Milwaukee Bucks are simply lucky to be here and were on the verge of getting knocked out in 5 or 6 games. I don’t think many of us to expected to see the lower scoring games vs. the Brooklyn Nets either.
That was an odd series in the sense there was some bad quarters from both teams on offense in Round 2.
The Bucks averaged:
- 49.91 points in the 1st quarter
- 105.91 points in the 1st half
- 101.91 points in the 2nd half
- 106.45 points for
- 101.36 points against
- 207.82 total points
If we factor out Game 3 vs. the Brooklyn Nets because of the abnormally low scoring game (169 points):
- 50.8 points in the 1st quarter
- 107.8 points in the 1st half
- 103.9 points in the 2nd half
- 108.5 points for
- 103.2 points against
- 211.7 total points
The Bucks just aren’t in many high-scoring games. Their highest total has been 230 total points and that was Game 2 vs. Miami when the Bucks had 46 first quarter points, but that was an anomaly as well. I am more inclined to look toward the under for MIL because they aren’t getting into these high scoring affairs.
Note: Overtime numbers didn’t sway this data, but they were thrown out of the numbers above because OT simply doesn’t happen very often (even in the playoffs) and we shouldn’t be banking handicaps on it.
Atlanta Hawks
This is another seemingly lucky team to be here in the Eastern Conference Finals. They came back from two huge deficits to beat the Philadelphia 76ers. This young Hawks team has impressively overachieved throughout the postseason, but I am not so sure if they match up well here vs. the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Hawks games are averaging the following:
- 52 points in the 1st quarter
- 105.67 points in the 1st half
- 105.58 points in the 2nd half
- 106.25 points for
- 105 points against
- 211.25 total points
The Hawks have been very consistent in all 12 playoffs games so far, and we only have two relative outliers coming in Games 1/3 vs. PHI when 225+ points were scored. Let's adjust those two out:
- 50.7 points in the 1st quarter
- 102.3 points in the 1st half
- 102.2 points in the 2nd half
- 103.6 points for
- 100.9 points against
- 204.5 total points
Outside of those two very high-scoring games, we see a clear downward trend offensively here.
And I expect some unders accordingly.