Pacers vs Celtics Eastern Conference Finals Preview - May 20

The 2024 NBA playoffs have played out like a war of attrition. Unsurprisingly, the two teams still standing in the Eastern Conference are not just the most talented, but those who have managed to push through the first two rounds with their rosters mostly intact.

Today I’m breaking down the Eastern Conference Finals between the No. 6-seeded Indiana Pacers and the No.1 seed Boston Celtics which tips off on Tuesday, May 21. Boston comes in as a heavy favorite in the NBA Title odds, but the Pacers are making a habit of proving the doubters wrong.

My NBA Eastern Conference Finals Series Preview for Pacers vs. Celtics takes stock of the NBA playoff odds and the X-factors that could decide the series before providing my free NBA series prop pick below.

Pacers vs Celtics series odds

Series Winner

• Celtics (-900)
• Pacers (+600)

Series Spread

• Celtics -2.5 games (-155)
• Pacers +2.5 (+130)

All odds courtesy of DraftKings on 5-20-24

Indiana Pacers breakdown (No. 6 seed, 47-35)

The Indiana Pacers have pulled off back-to-back upsets to book their ticket to their first Conference Finals since 2014. 

First, they dispatched a Milwaukee Bucks team that had championship aspirations before undoing the New York Knicks in dramatic fashion. The Pacers began the series against New York down 0-2 but ended up completing the comeback with one of the all-time great Game 7 performances to snatch the series in Madison Square Garden.

Skeptics will justifiably point out that both the Bucks and Knicks were shadows of their former selves in their respective series. Giannis Antetokounpo didn’t play a Game while Damian Lillard missed significant time. The Knicks finished the series with six of their top seven rotation players out of action after a never-ending avalanche of injuries that began to look like divine punishment. 

But the Pacers earned their way into the East Finals. While they were uneven at points in both series, they were stress-tested and passed with flying colors.

Pacers X-factor: Bench play

The Pacers' bench has proven a decisive advantage for Indiana so far.

Through two rounds the Pacers had added 432 points off the bench, dwarfing the next highest team — the Dallas Mavericks — at 294.

Players from TJ McConnell to Obi Toppin and Ben Sheppard all had standout performances, playing large stretches of critical games and coming up huge again and again.

OBI TOPPIN ON HIS HEAD. pic.twitter.com/r7hYb5K1bz

— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) May 18, 2024

But neither the Knicks nor the Bucks, or what was left of them, were able to exploit the weaknesses of the Pacers bench in their depleted state.

McConnell can be schemed against because he can’t space the floor. Obi is a weak defender in pick-and-roll defense. Sheppard is a rookie who has played like a vet, but he also largely avoided getting attacked in the Knicks series. 

The Celtics have the means to test them all, and if one or two of them are forced out of the rotation in part or in full, suddenly depth is no longer an edge for Indiana, and their breakneck pace becomes more difficult to sustain.

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Boston Celtics breakdown (No. 1 seed, 64-18)

The Boston Celtics had a largely stress-free path to the Eastern Conference Finals, beating a pair of injured Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers teams.

But too often lost in the conversation about Boston’s charmed path to the East Finals, is that they earned it by running roughshod over the rest of the NBA in the regular season. No team was remotely close to them in overall record or point differential.

Still, the Celtics dropped Game 2 in both series at home and they weren’t close. Their opponents were so outmatched from a talent perspective that those losses raised old questions about this Celtics team and whether they are mentally disciplined enough to win a championship.

Going to the East Finals for the sixth time in eight years should be considered a remarkable achievement in itself, but this Celtics group was so dominant in the regular season that such an accomplishment means nothing if they can’t win it all.

Whether this Celtics team is made of stronger stuff mentally than in years past is yet to be determined.

Celtics X-factor: A wounded unicorn

Kristaps Porzingis has been out since Game 4 of the first round after suffering a calf injury. While nothing is certain, reports indicate that he will miss at least the first two Games of this series. 

How soon he can return and what shape he’s in physically could determine whether this is a short series for the Celtics or if Indiana has an outside chance at an upset. While Porzingis isn’t the Celtics’ best player, he’s arguably the most indispensable to their style of play and is particularly needed in this matchup.

N🚫 pic.twitter.com/voQ2y2tmF9

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) April 27, 2024

Porzingis is an unrepentant gunner from deep with one of the quickest releases in the entire NBA. And unlike earlier in his career, he’s become a nasty mismatch hunter inside the arc. Gone are the days when opponents could comfortably switch a guard onto him and push him off his spots. Now any time he catches the ball back to the basket within 10 feet of the hoop it results in a quality shot.

But most importantly he is a dominant rim protector that solidifies a Celtics backline that otherwise has to rely too much on a still-good-but-rapidly-aging Al Horford. 

The Pacers lead the NBA in points in the paint, and having one of the NBA’s most dominant rim protectors could stifle Indiana’s half-court attack.

Pacers vs Celtics Prediction

These were the two best offenses, not just in the NBA this season, but of all time. In a postseason where scoring has often been at a premium, this series should look more like the shootouts that defined much of the regular season.

But while these teams share offensive firepower, the Celtics were also the Association’s second-best defense. Not only that, but their style of defensive play, built on switching like-size players all over the floor and forcing opposing teams to attack in isolation, should be difficult for the Pacers to counter. 

The Celtics' individual defenders are so good that they won’t feel the need to put two on the ball at any time (though they’ll do so occasionally just to keep the Pacers guessing). That means they won’t be in rotation, which shortcircuits the primary goal of the Pacers' half-court offense. 

If they can’t put the Celtics in the blender, it becomes talent vs. talent on the perimeter, and that is a fight the Pacers will not win.

If the Pacers are going to have a chance, they’ll need Tyrese Haliburton to be special.

Haliburton looked more and more like the early-season monster version of himself as the Knicks series went on. That player gives the Pacers a puncher's chance in any game.

But Haliburton was all too easy to take out of his Game in previous rounds. He’s vulnerable to teams that can switch liberally like the Celtics as he’s not elite at breaking down a defender one on one.

And he’s going to be defended by players like Derrick White and Jrue Holiday throughout the series, both of whom are vastly superior defenders to anyone the Bucks or Knicks could muster.

On the other end, Boston has multiple spots they can attack. Haliburton was hunted relentlessly by the Knicks and Bucks. Andrew Nembhard was food for Jalen Brunson in isolation and surely would struggle if hunted by the likes of Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown. If Boston makes a point of mismatch hunting, it quickly could wear out or demoralize Indiana.

The Pacers in turn could take advantage of the Celtics' occasional lack of focus. The Pacers speed in transition and the half-court will punish any halfhearted rotations, and it’s easy to see the Celtics dropping yet another stunning home game in the series.

The Pacers are outmatched in terms of talent, but they have had to play at a much higher level than the Celtics to get to this point. But the Celtics are just much better across the board and will be even stronger when Porzingis makes his eventual return. The Pacers will make this a comPetitive series, but I don’t think they’re a serious threat to win.

While the Celtics series winner odds are not appetizing, I like the exact score bet of Celtics 4-2 at +410 odds.

Series pick: Celtics in 6 (+410 FanDuel)