Houston Rockets guard James Harden drives to the basket as Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert defends during Game 1 of their NBA basketball first-round playoff serieson April 14, 2019.
Houston Rockets guard James Harden drives to the basket as Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert defends during Game 1 of their NBA basketball first-round playoff serieson April 14, 2019.Eric Christian Smith | Associated Press

NBA Playoff Picks from Frank: Pacers v Celtics & Jazz v Rockets

Pacers (+7.5) @ CELTICS (204)
Pick: Over 204
We wrote about how unders are cashing at a very high rate in the first week of the NBA playoffs last night. Sure enough, two more hit on Tuesday and fortunately one of the two was our Oklahoma City-Portland game pick. This total in game two of the Boston-Indiana series was one I was curious to see right when game one went final. The Celtics won the first game of this series on Sunday 84-74 for a total of 158 points. That landed a whopping 52 points under the closing total of 210. There was going to be an adjustment driving the game two total down, but six points seems to be enough for us to get to the window with the over. Rarely are sportsbooks off by that much like they were in game one so betting a regression to the mean by taking the over here when the total is six points lower than it was in the opening game makes sense. The winner of this game scores 110 which should be enough to get the full game total over 204.

Jazz (+7) @ ROCKETS (213)
Pick: Jazz +7
Game one of this series was a blowout for Houston and we weren’t close to cashing our ticket on Utah with the points. But who are we to hold grudges? We’re going right back to the well with the Jazz tonight expecting a much better effort in the second game. This series should still go at least six games and Utah probably needs a split in Houston to give itself a real chance at winning it. So far the first round series in the NBA have all been pretty competitive. Out of the five matchups that have already played two games, Portland-Oklahoma City is the only series not tied at 1 and Portland being up 2-0 is a likely surprise to many. Expect the competition in this series to heat up on Wednesday and while that may not result in a Utah win, it should result in the Jazz covering.

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