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Posted at 2:45 PM EST.

Eastern Conference Semifinal

Game 2

Boston -5 -105 over Milwaukee

7:00 PM EST. We could dissect Game 1 to pieces and still not be able to come up with a good explanation as to why the Celtics are again favored by 5-points in Game 2 after getting waffled 101-89 at home on Sunday afternoon.

Why Boston got clobbered in Beantown is not a high school level dissection. The Celtics were cold as ice on a sleepy Sunday. More often than not, one of the two teams playing on a Sunday afternoon just doesn’t show up for one reason (strippers) or another (family or other homely obligations). The C’s shot 33% from the field. You can’t win on any playground on this planet shooting 1-of-3. The Celtics did hit 18-of-50 three-point attempts, but that they were firing off so often from downtown and only collected 10 offensive boards meant that the game script was set. Boston was chasing Milwaukee all night long and lost a boat race by a mile. We can’t predict whether or not the Celtics will be as cold shooting tonight, but we do know that they are well-coached and should not be suckered into that kind of fight again.

As for the Bucks side, Khris Middelton who? If there's a scarier shooter in these playoffs right now than Jrue Holiday then we don’t want to see him because we’re down to our last pair of gotch. Giannis Antetokounmpo got all the headlines coming out of Game 1, but it was Holiday that stirred the Bucks’ drink all night long. We’re not telling C’s coach Ime Udoka how to do his job, but we’d ignore “The Greek Freak” completely and focus the shutdown defense on Holiday. Let Giannis get his, he can’t score 80 all by himself and his free throw shooting is below average.

Let’s get back to where we started, the point-spread. Who in the green hell, and believe us, we’d know after betting Boston in Game 1, has the appetite to bet the Celtics again tonight? Our first thought was to pass as well. It’s not an easy wager to pull the trigger on, however, we’ve been stressing the importance of sticking with it.

If we thought the Celtics were a value wager in Game 1, how can we not feel that way after their stock has dropped considerably? We are not in the business of predicting who is going to be hot and who is not. We are in the business of finding overvalued and undervalued teams and letting the chips fall where they may. The Celtics should be the definition of an undervalued favorite in Game 2 just based on the overreaction in the market to the result of Game 1. That’s the mantra and that is how we are going to play this one. We’re not gun shy and you shouldn’t be either. Swallow the points