{"id":12128,"date":"2011-01-02T16:47:30","date_gmt":"2011-01-02T21:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12128"},"modified":"2011-01-02T16:56:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-02T21:56:02","slug":"battle-in-the-north-boston-celtics-at-toronto-raptors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/battle-in-the-north-boston-celtics-at-toronto-raptors-12128\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle in the North: Boston Celtics at Toronto Raptors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics AT Toronto Raptors
\nJanuary 2nd, 2011 at 6:05 PM EST
\nOpening Line: Boston -5
\nCurrent Line: Boston -5.5
\nOpening Total: 197.5
\nCurrent Total: 197
\nOpening Moneyline: Boston -215 \/ Toronto +185
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Boston -210 \/ Toronto +175<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Rondo is out indefinitely<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston and Toronto enter tonight’s game with opposite trends.\u00a0 Boston has won 7 of their last 10; Toronto has lost 7 of their last 10.\u00a0 They’ll try to right the ship at home where they are a nearly respectable 7-9.\u00a0 Boston recently lost Garnett to injury, a loss that will undoubtedly weaken their defense and hurt them on the boards.<\/p>\n

With Garnett’s loss came the return of Jermaine O’Neal, who along with his non related buddy Shaquille O’Neal, will attempt to pick up the slack left by KG.\u00a0 Toronto, too, has been missing a key player in Andrea Bargnani, who has been hampered by a calf injury and is listed as day-to-day.\u00a0 DeMar DeRozan scored 37, attempting to pick up the slack, but utlimately not having their starting center is going to hurt, if only on offense.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Boston has won 15 of their past 18 games and are 1-4 ATS in their last 5.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of their past 6 games and they are 7-2 on the road over their past 9.\u00a0 They are 11-4-1 ATS over their last 16 in Toronto and the total has gone OVER In 5 of their last 5 against the Raptors. They have won 9 of their last 10 against Toronto and and the total has gone over in 4 of the last 5 road games in Toronto.\u00a0 Boston has also won 6 of their last 7 in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Toronto has lost 4 of their last 5 and are 1-3-1 ATS in those games.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 4 of their last 5 at home and they have lost 5 of their last 6 at home, and they are 1-5 ATS in those 6 games.<\/p>\n

Key matchups:
\n
\nNate Robinson vs.\u00a0 Jose Calderon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ah, the tourtise and the hare.\u00a0 Nate Robinson could probably run the length of the court twice in the time it takes Calderon to do so once, but Calderon isn’t a bad player.\u00a0 He’s just going to get destroyed by Robinson on defense.\u00a0 He has absolutely no chance at stopping him from getting into the paint at will or from stopping him from getting a lot of offensive boards.\u00a0 Calderon has been effective distributing the ball, which is his forte, but he can’t create his own shots and will struggle to get open looks against Rondo.<\/p>\n

Ray Allen vs. DeMar DeRozan<\/strong><\/p>\n

DeRozan doesn’t do much other than score, but he does it well.\u00a0 He put up 37 last game and has the ability to run the court with the best of them and can finish very well.\u00a0 Ray Allen will likely show him a thing or two about how to play defense around picks as DeRozan will have a tough time preventing Ray Allen from getting a lot of open jumpers.\u00a0 It should be an interesting battle between the young and the old, but expect Ray’s veteran savvy to get the better of DeRozan tonight.<\/p>\n

This game probably won’t be as close as This game probably won’t be as close as NBA oddsmakers have predicted.\u00a0 While losing KG hurts, Boston still has superior depth and talent to the Raptors and are very good on the road (11-5).\u00a0 Look for Boston to wear down Toronto as the game goes on; Toronto just doesn’t have the depth to match it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\/\/ <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics AT Toronto Raptors January 2nd, 2011 at 6:05 PM EST Opening Line: Boston -5 Current Line: Boston -5.5 Opening Total: 197.5 Current Total: 197 Opening Moneyline: Boston -215 \/ Toronto +185 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Boston -210 \/ Toronto +175 Boston and Toronto enter tonight’s game with opposite trends.\u00a0 Boston has won 7 of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[120,693],"class_list":["post-12128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-boston-celtics","tag-toronto-raptors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12128"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12131,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128\/revisions\/12131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}