Brooklyn’s cooked; bet on Boston brooms

You wouldn’t know it from what we’ve seen in this series, but the Nets were preseason favorites to win the NBA title. As it turns out, championships aren’t won on paper and they certainly aren’t won by teams that struggle defensively.

Along with the turnovers that have led to easy Celtics baskets, the Nets haven’t been able to slow down Jayson Tatum. Tatum has played excellent defense on Kevin Durant, while averaging a series-high 29.7 points.

Jaylen Brown has also been stellar, averaging 22.7 points, 4.7 assists, 4.3 rebounds and three steals, and this Celtics offense as a whole is scoring 1.22 points per possession. Even when they aren’t scoring, they’re dominating the offensive glass with a 32.1 percent offensive rebound rate in this series.

With Durant and Kyrie Irving playing through unsustainable workloads just to make the postseason, the Nets don’t have a lot in the tank against a Celtics defense that has been downright stifling. Throughout this series, the Nets are scoring just 1.08 points per possession. Even more problematic is Brooklyn allowed a whopping 37 points off 21 turnovers in Game 3 and they have an alarming 15.4 percent turnover rate for the series.

I’ve said this before, but if you’re betting on the Nets, you’re essentially betting that Durant and Irving’s shotmaking can overcome all of their other issues. Through the first three games of this series, it’s becoming increasingly clear that isn’t going to happen.

To put it bluntly, the Nets are done. Meanwhile, the Celtics are ready to take the leap into being the cream of the crop of the Eastern Conference. In 2021, Boston got swept in the first round by Brooklyn. This time the Celtics get the sweep. Take the Celtics on the ML.

THE PLAY: Celtics +100