NBA - 531 Boston Celtics @ 532 New York Knicks
Projected Line: NY Knicks by 5 points
I don't expect Boston to be just competitive during the first half tonight, like it happened on the two games the Celtics played at New York on this series. Doc Rivers's decision of starting Brandon Bass instead of Jason Terry, something that worked in both ways. Finally, Terry had a nice game coming off the bench with 7-10 FG, 18 points and 4 assists, while giving the team scoring punch coming off the bench, something the Celtics were needing a lot. On the other hand, with Brandon Bass on the floor, the Celtics can really stop the Knicks's offense, as they rotate extremely well and due to the fact that they are an undersized unit, they are able to go toe-to-toe with the Knicks's undersized lineup. Of course the Knicks didn't have J.R. Smith on the last game of this series, who massively helped his team on the first three games of this series with good shooting, but the problem of the Knicks's offense is their ball movement, as they had 13, 14 and 10 assists in three of the first four games of this series. The result of that is a lot of ISO ball that the Celtics can defend well.
The problem for Boston has been on their offense. However, I believe they will surprise everybody on tonight's game. If you've watched this series, you've probably heard Doc Rivers by now yelling "trust the offense" and "quicken the pace" at his team in various "Wired" segments. Boston had 19 transition plays on the last game of this series, while making some changes that gave more importance to Jason Terry, something that worked quite well for them. The Celtics dominated Game 4, if we exclude a key run for the Knicks during the 3rd quarter, where Brandon Bass (5 PF), Kevin Garnett (4 PF) and Jeff Green (4 PF) were all in foul trouble. In fact, it's easy to realize that the Knicks's run happened with Garnett on the bench, as the Celtics outscored the Knicks by 16 points with Garnett on the floor! Even though almost everybody is expecting the Knicks to crush the Celtics tonight like they've done it on the first two games of this series, Boston made some nice adjustments on the last game that should allow them to be very competitive tonight. Therefore, I'll be taking Boston in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 531 Boston Celtics (+9) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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