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Huge game in the race for the top seed in the NBA’s Eastern Conference on Wednesday as the Miami Heat visit the Boston Celtics. A few key players are up in the air so the NBA odds will be determined by their status.

How to Bet Heat at Celtics NBA Odds & TV Info

When: Wednesday, 7:30 PM ET
Where: TD Garden
TV: ESPN
Stream: ESPN app
Radio: Tunein.com
NBA Odds: TBA (Celtics likely favored)

Season Series

Boston leads 2-0 and this is their final matchup. They last played Jan. 31 in Boston and the Celtics prevailed 122-92. Jaylen Brown had 29 points and Jayson Tatum added 20 points and 12 rebounds. Boston led by as many as 32. Marcus Smart added 16 points and seven assists. Jimmy Butler (toe), P.J. Tucker (knee) and Kyle Lowry (personal) were all out for the Heat. In their absence, Max Strus finished 27 points. Caleb Martin had 14 points and Bam Adebayo chipped in 12 points, five rebounds and five assists. The Heat are 50-78 all-time vs. the Celtics during the regular season, including 29-37 in home games and 21-41 in road games.

Why Bet on Miami?

Miami ended a four-game skid Monday with a 123-100 win over Sacramento. Miami’s 23-point victory margin was its largest since a 24-point win at Atlanta on Jan. 12. And Miami looked exactly the way Kings coach Alvin Gentry expected — especially after the Heat had dropped their last four.

“I don’t read a whole lot into that,” Gentry said. “I think if you look at their team and the way they go out, they will be a huge factor when the playoffs start anyway. I think it’s a wakeup call.”

Bam Adebayo had a monster night Monday, scoring 22 points with 15 rebounds in 31 minutes. He was 10-of-16 from the field and 2-of-2 from the free-throw line. Since returning from injury in mid-January, Adebayo is a top-25 fantasy player with averages of 19.3 points, 10.2 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.6 steals, 1.1 blocks on 57.3% shooting. He has shot at least 50 percent from the field in 11-straight games, tying the longest such streak of his career.

Jimmy Butler hit 10-14 shots for 27 points, seven assists and five rebounds. He’s averaging 21.1 points, 6.0 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 1.7 steals on 47.5% shooting on the year. In 28 minutes off the bench, Tyler Herro scored 20 points with six assists and five rebounds. Duncan Robinson also chipped in 15 points in a reserve role on 5-of-8 shooting. Herro has scored 1,063 points off the bench this season, the most for a single-season in Heat history, surpassing Dwyane Wade for the all-time record. Additionally, Miami’s reserves have totaled 3,056 points, the fifth-most for a season in team history.

After spending most of March at home — the Heat have played 11 of their last 12 games in their own building — a three-game road swing starts Wednesday in Boston.

Adebayo, who leads all centers in steals per game at 1.47, helps anchor the Heat defense that is giving up just 105.2 points per game, the fourth-lowest in the NBA. Miami’s defense holds teams to 108.1 points per 100 possessions, and with Adebayo on the court, that number drops to 104.4 points, which would be the top defense in the league. Adebayo has helped the Heat defense hold teams to under 100 points 23 times this season, posting a 22-1 record over that span.

Miami has clinched the Southeast Division title this season, marking their 15th divisional title in franchise history.

Why Bet on Boston?

The Celtics played without starters Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Robert Williams and Al Horford on Monday and lost 115-112 in OT in Toronto. Gary Trent made two free throws to put Toronto up by three points with 14.4 seconds left in the extra period. Marcus Smart and Grant Williams both missed game-tying 3-point tries on Boston’s final possession.

Derrick White accumulated 15 points, eight assists and six rebounds in the loss. White finished with the second-most shot attempts for Boston in this one, but he went ice-cold on 4-of-16 shooting. Marcus Smart went off for 28 points on 10-of-25 shooting and added 10 rebounds, four assists and a block. It was Smart’s first double-digit rebound game in two seasons and just his second double-double of the 21-22 campaign.

Daniel Theis managed 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting and added 10 rebounds. With Williams done for the season and Horford out due to personal reasons, Theis started and posted a double-double in a whopping 41 minutes of action.

Tatum and Brown will play Wednesday. Horford might. Williams will miss several weeks at minimum with a torn meniscus in his knee suffered Sunday. There are two options for Williams: a procedure that’d knock him out until next season or a four-to-six-week recovery that could bring him back sometime after the first round of the playoffs. Joel Embiid, for example, played through a tear in his right knee during last year’s playoffs. On the other hand, Collin Sexton has missed the majority of the 2021-22 season in Cleveland after undergoing surgery for a meniscus tear.

Williams is No. 1 among 169 players in the league who have defended 500-plus shots as the closest defender, per Second Spectrum tracking. Only Williams has held opponents under 40% shooting.

The Celtics own the NBA’s top-ranked defensive rating by far, in part because Coach of the Year candidate Ime Udoka moved Williams away from the source of actions, such as handoffs and pick-and-rolls. Instead, he has tasked him with defending corner 3-point shooters or a player hovering around the baseline. The point is to keep Williams near the paint, where he can stay positioned as a weak-side helper who can bolt at the last second and alter shots. Williams is averaging 10.0 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.2 blocks.

Game Trends

Heat are 7-2 ATS in their last 9 Wednesday games.
Heat are 5-2-1 ATS in their last 8 road games vs. a team with a winning home record.
Heat are 10-4 ATS in their last 14 games vs. a team with a winning % above .600.
Heat are 1-7 ATS in their last 8 games overall.
Celtics are 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games following a straight up loss.
Celtics are 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games vs. a team with a winning straight up record.
Celtics are 6-1 ATS in their last 7 games overall.
Heat are 9-3 ATS in the last 12 meetings in Boston.