New York Knicks vs Boston Celtics Prediction, Odds and Game 5 Picks for Today, 05/14/25

Boston Celtics ML over New York Knicks (-180)

Pride is at stake for the defending champions, who look to stay alive in their Eastern Conference semifinals against the Knicks. That Game 4 loss could go down as one of the darkest days in Celtics history, and losing Jayson Tatum to an Achilles injury was a massive blow to the ambitions of the men in green. However, I do not believe they will go down without a fight here.

Boston is yet to win a home game in this series, losing the first 2 at home as they missed a ton of shots while the Knicks rode their luck. An injury like Tatum’s has the potential to rally a team and I expect exactly that to happen here. There’s just too much talent on this Celtics team for them to simply roll over and get beat at home for the 3rd time in the same series. While I do have the Knicks advancing, I believe they’ll have to wait for Friday night at Madison Square Garden in order to do so.

Payton Pritchard to score 15+ points (+106)

Payton Pritchard has the opportunity to become the X-factor for Boston here. His contribution off the bench has been immense over the past 2 seasons, and this year he averaged a career-high 14.3 points per game in the regular season. That’s exactly what he’s averaging in this series after 4 games, scoring in double-figures 3 times. Tatum not playing means extra shooting opportunities across the board for the Celtics, with Tatum averaging 22.5 field-goal attempts in this series before going down with his injury.

I do not anticipate head coach Joe Mazzulla shying away from the gameplan that got the Celtics to this point, as the offense has looked solid over the past 2 games. Pritchard himself has performed well against this Knicks defense – he’s averaging 11.4 points per game in the last 10 head-to-head, and I’m expecting that number to go up in this must-win situation.

OG Anunoby 2+ made threes (-180)

After a pair of really bad offensive performances in Game 2 and Game 3, OG Anunoby responded with 20 points on Monday, giving Jalen Brunson much-needed help on offense. His form has been up and down this postseason, but over the 10 games he’s played in so far he’s knocking down 2.4 threes per game on 38.7% efficiency. With Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and even Mikal Bridges drawing the attention of the Boston defense before Anunoby, he’s been getting wide-open looks throughout this series.

Over the past 10 meetings, Anunoby has cleared this line 6 times while averaging 1.9 makes from deep on 34.5%. This being the Knicks’ first opportunity to move on from this series, there’s no doubt in my mind that Anunoby will be locked in right from the get-go. Not having to worry about defending Tatum should also be a factor that works in his favor here.