NBA - 805 Atlanta Hawks @ 806 Boston Celtics
Projected Line: Boston by 1 point
The first two games played between these two teams this season were probably the weirdest games that I've watched this season. In both games, the two teams completely dominated their opponent, but just in half of the time. In the first game, Atlanta was pounding the Celtics by as many as 19 points, before Boston made a huge comeback with 33-9 on the third quarter to win the game. On the second game, Boston was "able" to waste a 27 points lead at Atlanta, on a game where the Hawks won in double overtime, with the Celtics having no legs to compete at the end.
Boston with their new pieces was able to get a great win at Indiana, behind their usual stellar defense, but Boston has been regressing a lot on transition defense. I remember that Boston is still #30 in the league on transition defense with 1.23 PPP allowed, but with Avery Bradley's return they had dramatically improved on this area lately, just to regress once again by allowing 13, 12, 14 and 20 fast break points on their last four games. On the other hand, Atlanta has been having a nice second half of the season. They don't have distractions with trade rumors anymore and so, they have been carried by the best big man in the league for quite some time now. Al Horford has been amazing and he was once again superb on their last game with 10-17 FG, 21 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists! Atlanta is still struggling on rebounding, especially when they use Al Horford and Josh Smith together on the frontcourt, but the good news is that Boston hasn't been better on this area as well.
With these problems of the Celtics in defending transition plays and also on turnovers lately, Atlanta will have a very interesting edge on this area. We know what Atlanta is a top team when it comes to score fast break points and volume on transition plays with 16.4% of their total plays being transitions (#6 in the league). We also have in here the red hot Al Horford, who will be guarded by Brandon Bass. I believe Kevin Garnett will also try to defend him as well, but he will be exhausted quickly, as when he won't be defending Horford, he will be defending Josh Smith.
Boston's offense is also very dependent from their transitions, but Atlanta has a much better transition defense than the Celtics. Both teams are poor offensive rebounding teams, so we will have a very tight game in here. Everything points into another very close game between these two teams, therefore I'll take the Hawks plus the points in here, especially as they have superior athleticism.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 805 Atlanta Hawks (+4) @ -110 / 1.91 on Betonline
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