NBA - 703 Boston Celtics @ 704 New York Knicks
Projected Line: New York by 3 points
The Knicks are coming from a win at Orlando, where they were saved by excellent isolation plays from Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith during the fourth quarter. Orlando torched the Knicks defense on pick and rolls with 10-18 FG. Orlando played well, but Hedo Turkuglu, Josh McRoberts and J.J. Redick struggled and these three players were on the court in the start of the fourth quarter, when the Knicks made their comeback. On the other side, Boston is coming from a great road win at Atlanta, where they struggled in the first half, but then made an excellent comeback in the second half after some motivation words from Paul Pierce at half time.
“I just said we want to bring the fight to them,” he said. “I think we were kind of bickering at each other a little too much, figuring out what kind of defense we run and that was a little bit too much. I just had to say the fight ain’t against one another, it’s against the team out there on the court. When we realize that, we can play some ball. We stepped up that third quarter and we played the type of ball we know how to play."
Regardless the fact that Boston is playing better now with Avery Bradley and Brandon Bass in the lineup, this matchup is pretty favorable to the Celtics. We know that the Celtics struggle against teams with good offensive rebounding numbers and that have guards that can attack them with quick dribble penetrations. Besides that, Boston is also a poor defensive team on transition plays. But the Knicks don't have players to attack any of these three areas, as they are just #25 on offensive rebounding, Raymond Felton is their only guard that could make some nice dribble penetrations and he is injured, while the Knicks are the team with less volume on transition plays with just 9.2%!
The Knicks offense is based around isolations, pick and roll ball handler plays and spot ups, but the Celtics defense is #1 on isolation plays, #5 on pick and roll ball handler plays and #7 on spot up plays. Therefore, the Celtics should have no problems in severely limiting the Knicks offense today. On the other side, we have Rajon Rondo having a very good matchup with the slow footed Jason Kidd and Pablo Prigioni. The Knicks are just #24 on pick and roll ball handler defense and if Rondo has a big game tonight, then the Celtics will be highly competitive today due to their great defensive edge over the Knicks offense. Therefore, I'll be taking Boston in here.
NOTE: Rajon Rondo has been suspended for tonight's game, but with Avery Bradley being back, the Celtics has a decent number of solutions in the backcourt to make themselves competitive tonight. I also believe the Knicks will overlook the Celtics without Rondo tonight and they will pay the price of that.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 703 Boston Celtics (+6.5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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