Road to the NBA Finals: NBA Playoff Predictions, Picks for 76ers vs. Celtics on Saturday

It wouldn’t be the Road to the NBA Finals without a few Game 7s along the way!

Saturday night brings the first Game 7 of the 2026 NBA Playoffs (and hopefully not the last) as the Boston Celtics host the Philadelphia 76ers. The winner will take on the No. 3-seeded New York Knicks, who punched their ticket to the Eastern Conference semifinals on Thursday night.

Boston led this series 3-1 and was riding high after a blowout win over Philly – in Philly in Joel Embiid’s return from an appendectomy in Game 4.

Since then, Boston’s offense has gone cold, and it lost back-to-back games by double digits to set up a winner-take-all Game 7 on Saturday. The C’s are heavily favored in that matchup, but the Sixers have been the better team as of late.

So, how should we bet on it?

All postseason long, I’m sharing my favorite bet for every game in SI Betting’s “Road to the NBA Finals” column. The rules for this challenge are pretty simple:

Bet on every game through the play-in tournament and playoffs
Bet can be a spread, total, moneyline, player prop or game prop
ENJOY POSTSEASON BASKETBALL!

There’s a ton at stake on Saturday, as Philly has a chance to make history by completing the 14th comeback from a 3-1 deficit in the history of the NBA. Let’s examine my best bet for Game 7 between the Sixers and Celtics.

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook

UNDER 206.5 (-110)

Historically, Game 7s in the NBA are lower-scoring, and there are a couple of key Philly trends to note ahead of Saturday night’s game.

The Sixers have hit the UNDER in 15 of their 23 games as underdogs of six or more points, and the UNDER has hit 63 percent of the time when Philly is an underdog of any number in the 2025-26 season.

A team has failed to reach the 100-point mark in five of the six games in this series, and the lone game where both teams did so was a 108-100 road win for Boston. So, we’ve seen some lower-scoring games in general in this matchup, even if most have gone OVER 206.5 points.

Boston ranked 30th in the NBA in pace in the regular season, and the Sixers and Celtics have played at the second-slowest pace in the playoffs.

Philly’s pace of play naturally slows down when Embiid is on the floor, as it is much more content in the half court and will run plenty of isolations for the former league MVP against Boston’s bigs.

There is the threat of Boston exploding from beyond the arc in this game, but the C’s have shot under 30 percent from deep in back-to-back games and have fallen to sixth among playoff teams in effective field goal percentage (Philly is 10th).

These teams combined for just 199 points in Game 6, and I wouldn’t be shocked if we see a similar total in Game 7.

Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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