NBA - 719 Boston Celtics @ 720 Los Angeles Lakers
Projected Line: 190 points
Boston was able to be competitive last night at Denver, mostly thanks to some stellar defense. I took Boston because I thought their improved transition defense and their great pick and roll ball handler defense would slow down Denver's potent offense and this happened exactly with the Nuggets shooting just 2-10 FG on pick and roll ball handler plays and scoring just 11 fast break points! Boston's problem was their inconsistency on offense. Paul Pierce is really struggling right now and he has shot a combined of 15-58 (25.8%) FG on the last four games! The Celtics will now play a back to back game at LA against the Lakers, on a tough spot for them. However, Doc Rivers was able to manage the usage of his players well last night and nobody played more than 35 minutes!
In the first game between these two teams this season, Boston crushed the Lakers at home. The key factor for that was the early transition points from the Celtics, who simply crushed the Lakers's poor transition defense. Boston ended the game with 22 fast break points and 58 points in the paint, something that it will be almost impossible to replicate tonight due to their poor physical spot for tonight. On the other hand, Boston is #1 on pick and roll ball handler defense, so they will always be a tough matchup for the Lakers's offense that mostly uses exactly this kind of play on offense.
This is an emotional game for the Lakers due to Jerry Buss's death, so we can expect a big effort from them tonight, especially on the defensive end, as their effort has been nice on offense throughout the whole season. Dwight Howard had some rest during the All Star Break, so we can expect him to be more active on defense tonight as well. I see this game being a low scoring affair because of all these factors, so I'll be taking the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 719/720 Under 194,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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