Miami and Boston spilt the regular season series. The Celtics comes off a game seven while the Heat have the rest advantage. Miami was tied for the worst ATS record, 30-49-3, during the regular season and now own the best ATS record, 8-3, in the playoffs. The Heat have the coaching advantage and the role players that have been doing all the little things correctly.

The Celtics already have three home playoff losses, while Miami has road wins in Milwaukee (two of them) and New York in these playoffs. Where do you fall in the Rest vs. Rust argument? NBA teams on at least five days of rest in the playoffs like the Heat facing a team on three days or fewer rest in Game 1 of a series like the Celtics have covered 30 of the past 50 such instances. In the second round or later, the better-rested team is 28-16 ATS in that scenario. I honestly don't know which Boston shows up and neither does anyone else. The C's could win by 30 or lose by 10 and neither would really surprise me.

Game 1 tonight of what looks to be a war of a series and I can't wait. Normally with these two defenses you would look towards playing unders however we have a chance to steal one tonight. Overs are 5-1 in the last six road games for Miami and tonight could be a quicker pace than many think. Jaylen Brown is 33-70 from behind the arc this postseason and it shouldn't stop tonight. In fact, Brown has hit this number in 8 of his last ten games. Let's get it.

The Heat were dominant against the Knicks. They won the series 4-2 and lost only one game with Jimmy Butler in the lineup. Boston should be the favorite at home, but this is way too many points. The 76ers won twice in Boston and this Heat squad is well rested. Grab the points with the underdog.

Marcus Smart is one of those experienced vets who shifts into another gear in the postseason -- and this line reflects his regular season numbers. He averages 11.5 pts, 3.1 reb and 6.3 assists per game during the regular season. Those numbers jump to 15.8/4.2/5.1 in the playoffs. Not only do his averages increase, his efficiency does as well. He shoots 41% from the field in the regular season and 46.5% in the postseason. When Smart's PRA line is set to 22.5, the over is 36-17.

Jimmy Buckets steps up his game in the playoffs, and we saw him become a one-man show in Miami's upset of the Milwaukee Bucks. He averaged 37.6 points per game in the series. However, Jimmy too more of a backseat role against the Knicks. He never scored 30 points in any of the games, and only eclipsed this total in one. Also, while he only played two games against Boston during the regular season, he didn't score more than 25 in either, and he's scored fewer points on the road all year long.

SportslineAI has the spread for this game set at -3. Miami's entire strategy is to keep the game close enough that they can win with one defensive or offensive run. Watch the Early Edge in 5 on Youtube at 4pm ET for the full breakdown.

The Heat are well-rested after having knocked off the Knicks in six games. Meanwhile, the Celtics had to claw back from a 3-2 series deficit against the 76ers to advance this far. In the first round, the Heat defeated the Bucks by 13 points in Milwaukee in Game 1. In the second round, they beat the Knicks in New York by seven points in Game 1. They might not win this game, but this spread is too big. Did you really think I’d pick against my guy Jimmy Butler?

The Heat badly need Strus to stretch the floor and provide additional scoring with Tyler Herro (hand) out. He has done just that, scoring at least 14 points in each of the last five games. During that span, he averaged 16.0 points and 3.0 three-pointers. The two games that he started against the Celtics during the regular season, he scored 13 and 23 points, respectively. With his starting role secure, another productive scoring performance could be in the cards.

For as good of a scorer as Brown is, he is not a great dribbler. During the regular season, he averaged 2.9 turnovers per game. With additional minutes coming to him in the playoffs, he has at least three turnovers in nine of 13 games. The Heat generated the sixth-most steals per game in the league during the regular season. In the three meetings that Brown had with them, he turned the ball over a staggering 14 times. Give me the over.

During the regular season, Tatum averaged 8.8 rebounds over 37 minutes per game. With him logging 40 minutes per game in the playoffs, he has averaged 10.6 rebounds. That has included him grabbing at least 10 rebounds in six of the last eight games. The Heat don’t have a ton of size outside of Bam Adebayo, so with Tatum set to play a ton, I expect him to go over this total.

I prefer the points line here but it's not available in many places so we're playing the combo line which has a similar edge. However, you should definitely shop around as you can find this at -110 or better. I wouldn't play it above -125 where it is currently in this tool. I'm anticipating the Celtics going back to more minutes with Derrick White (potentially even starting again) instead of Robert Williams. Williams was needed against Joel Embiid and could easily sag off PJ Tucker in help defense. That won't be the case in this matchup where I think both teams elect to play a little smaller. White will likely hit this total on points alone if we're correct on the minutes returning somewhere near his baseline. He's had a ton of success in this matchup with game P+R totals of 17, 16, 17, and 26 this year.

Derrick White had a rough series against the 76ers and had nearly fallen out of the rotation in games 6 and 7. Boston opted to go big by inserting Robert Williams into the starting lineup in an attempt to try and slow down Joel Embiid. It paid off as Embiid was mostly ineffective and the Celtics won the final two games of the series. Boston will now have to deal with a more mobile Center in Bam Adebayo, as well as a Heat squad with more spacing. As a result I expect White to regain his role in the Celtic's rotation and play closer to the 30 minutes. If that is the case, we are getting a massive discount on this combo line that was routinely in the mid/low 20's prior to his demotion.

After an opening round series where Jimmy Butler erupted for 37 PPG, he averaged 24.6 PPG against the Knicks during the conference semi's and failed to eclipse 30+ points. Butler's scoring decrease can largely be attributed to the Knicks doubling Jimmy on nearly every possession and forcing his teammates to step up and make shots. New York successfully slowed down Butler, however the Heat were 4-1 when Jimmy was active and he was very effective as a facilitator. Jimmy will need to score a lot more in this series against Boston if the Heat are going to advance to the finals. I do not expect Boston to double Butler either. Give me a well rested Butler versus a Celtics defense that has been exposed lately.