{"id":10897,"date":"2010-11-22T10:35:25","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T15:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=10897"},"modified":"2010-11-22T11:08:30","modified_gmt":"2010-11-22T16:08:30","slug":"nba-betting-preview-boston-celtics-vs-atlanta-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-betting-preview-boston-celtics-vs-atlanta-hawks-10897\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Betting Preview: Boston Celtics vs Atlanta Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics at Atlanta Hawks
\nMonday, 11\/22\/10, 7:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Line: \u00a0Atlanta -3
\nOpening Total: \u00a0194<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Atlanta Hawks swept the Boston Celtics in last year's series and now host them for the first time during the 2010-11 season<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston has dropped consecutive games and will be looking avoid a fifth straight loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night.\u00a0 The Celtics fought back from a double-digit deficit in the fourth quarter on Sunday afternoon in Toronto, but the Raptors closed the game on an 8-3 run.\u00a0 \u201cWe didn\u2019t play great, but we had a chance to win the game and we should have won the game,\u201d said head coach Doc Rivers.\u00a0 \u201cBut we put ourselves in that position at least.\u201d\u00a0 The team gave up 61 points in the first half and obviously missed point guard Rajon Rondo on the offensive end, who sat out with a hamstring injury.\u00a0 Heading into yesterday, Boston was shooting 50.5 percent from the floor, the only team in the NBA at or above the 50 percent mark.\u00a0 The team is 7-6 ATS on the year and the NBA lines page is available to gauge movement all day.<\/p>\n

The Celtics have surrendered 106.3 points per game in its previous three road games after limiting teams to 88.3 over the first four.\u00a0 \u201cWe can\u2019t just show up,\u201d said forward Kevin Garnett.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got to play some D.\u201d\u00a0 Leading scorer Paul Pierce also voiced his frustration after dropping consecutive games.\u00a0 \u201cI know we\u2019re a better team than those two teams, I know we are,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s just mentally coming out and have the right mindset.\u201d\u00a0 Boston hopes to have Rondo\u2019s NBA-best 14.3 assists per game back in the lineup, but his status is unknown at the time of this writing.<\/p>\n

Atlanta dropped its fourth straight game this season to a legitimate playoff-caliber opponent with a 98-93 loss to the Dallas Mavericks last time out.\u00a0 The Hawks have been having trouble scoring at home, where they are averaging 98.3 points compared to 104.5 on the road.\u00a0 Scoring woes have caused them to drop four of five at Philips Arena.\u00a0 \u201cWe didn\u2019t come out with the energy we needed,\u201d said guard Joe Johnson.\u00a0 He will be depended upon in a big way in tonight\u2019s matchup, coming in averaging 23.0 points against the Celtics since the 2008-09 season.\u00a0 Atlanta is 0-7 ATS at home this season.<\/p>\n

The Hawks will take on the Celtics for the first-of-three games this season after dominating the series last year, winning all four by an average of 8.5 points per game.\u00a0 It was a far different story than Boston winning the previous seven meetings.\u00a0 Head coach Larry Drew knows that his team will be challenged once again versus the defending Eastern Conference Champions.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of stuff we need to clean up,\u201d he stated.\u00a0 \u201cAnd it has to start now.\u201d\u00a0 Through 13 games, the team is second in the league in field goal percentage (.493) and 11th in scoring (101.2).<\/p>\n

Bettors will find the the Celtics are 12-4 ATS following a SU loss, while the Hawks are 14-6 ATS versus the Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n

The NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports are ready for a huge night of winners on the hardcourt!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics at Atlanta Hawks Monday, 11\/22\/10, 7:00 PM EDT Opening Line: \u00a0Atlanta -3 Opening Total: \u00a0194 Boston has dropped consecutive games and will be looking avoid a fifth straight loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night.\u00a0 The Celtics fought back from a double-digit deficit in the fourth quarter on Sunday afternoon in Toronto, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[834,120,3686,3622,2897,764,3738,197],"class_list":["post-10897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-boston-celtics","tag-doc-rivers","tag-eastern-conference","tag-joe-johnson","tag-kevin-garnett","tag-larry-drew","tag-rajon-rondo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10897"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10899,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10897\/revisions\/10899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}