The Boston Celtics were already stumbling through this season, but now they’ve really been dealt a blow. On Monday night the team announced star forward Jaylen Brown was diagnosed with a torn scapholunate ligament in his left wrist and is done for the rest of the season. And it was pretty much game over for the Celtics championship betting odds, too.
Soon after the news about Brown’s status was announced, the odds for Boston to win the Eastern Conference Championship this season took a tumble. At FanDuel Sportsbook, their odds, which started at +2700, got much longer, moving to +4600.
At BetMGM, the Celtics odds to win the NBA Finals opened at +1000. They are now a whopping +10000, as of Tuesday. Not great!
In October of 2020, Boston’s odds at FanDuel to win the NBA Finals were +1200.
Brown was having one heck of a season before this injury sidelined him. He was averaging a career-high 24.7 points per game on 48.4 percent shooting, which is also a career high. In addition, he was averaging a career-high 3.4 assists per game. And now, just like that, he’s expected to have surgery on his wrist this week.
He had missed the last three Celtics games with a right ankle injury that he suffered after colliding with teammate Jayson Tatum in the final seconds of Boston’s May 1 loss to the Portland Trailblazers. Brown played in a total of 58 games for the Celtics this season.
Boston is 7th in the Eastern Conference with a 35-33 record. They've reached the East Finals in three of the past four years and now run the risk of not making the playoffs at all this time around.
Lucy is a sports betting content producer with Audacy and BetQL. She has worked with WEEI and Audacy as a writer, radio producer and podcaster. Lucy lives in Boston and loves Tom Brady and prop bets. Follow Lucy on Twitter at @LucilleBurdge.
