NBA Odds: Why You Shouldn’t Wait To Bet On Celtics To Win Eastern Conference

“Right team, right price” is the name of the game in sports betting.

The goal always should be to maximize your profit by getting the best of the betting number.

It drives us nuts when somebody bets a basketball underdog at +4 when they could have bet it at +6 before the market moved. Let’s just pretend that game lands on five at 120-115 — the +4 and +6 bets have two completely different results. One wins, the other loses.

Which one would you want to be?

The sports betting futures markets are fun to explore because of their constant fluidity over the course of a given season. With futures, bettors can lock in a specific price at the time of purchase and they’re locked into that price no matter what. You always should aim to buy the right team before everybody else figures it out.

Take the Celtics, for example. Boston opened the season around +550 to win the Eastern Conference this year at most American sportsbooks following a top-three finish last season. So a $100 bet before the season would win $550 and pay out $650.

The Celtics lost two of their first three games and three of their first six. Their odds to win the East fell from +550 to +850 just like that. It also didn’t hurt that the Philadelphia 76ers started 6-1 out of the gate to raise their betting stock.

We discussed buying Boston to win the East at +850 during Tuesday night’s episode of “NESN After Hours.”

Guess what happened after Payton Pritchard’s game-winning putback Wednesday night against the Miami Heat? Boston’s conference title odds moved from +850 to +700 at several sportsbooks. It even is down to +650 at a couple of other betting shops. That’s what winning does.

The C’s realistically could win five of their next six games. They will play the Washington Wizards and the Heat at home this weekend and visit the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday before returning to the Commonwealth for a three-game homestand featuring the Orlando Magic and the New York Knicks.

A bet on Boston at +700 makes sense to us at the moment. It’s a great buy-low spot on a team we expect to improve over the course of the season. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown get better every day, a testament to coaching and development. Once Tristan Thompson finds his conditioning and Kemba Walker eventually re-enters the fold, this team will be a dangerous out in the playoffs.

Don’t wait to pull the trigger in March when Boston is +300 or +350.

Remember — it’s all about right team, right price.