{"id":12203,"date":"2011-01-05T16:48:52","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T21:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12203"},"modified":"2011-01-05T16:48:52","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T21:48:52","slug":"clash-of-the-conference-leaders-san-antonio-spurs-at-boston-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/clash-of-the-conference-leaders-san-antonio-spurs-at-boston-celtics-12203\/","title":{"rendered":"Clash of the Conference Leaders: San Antonio Spurs at Boston Celtics"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs AT Boston Celtics
\nWednesday, Jan 5, 2011 at 7:35 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Boston -2
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Boston -2.5
\nOpening Total: 191
\nCurrent Total: 190
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Boston -130 \/ San Antonio +110
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Boston -130 \/ San Antonio +110<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
How will Duncan counter Big Baby's out of place atheleticism?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tonight’s game brings together the best team in each conference, record-wise, and has all the potential of being a possible Finals match in June.\u00a0 San Antonio comes into tonight’s game with a 29-5 record, including 10-3 on the road, and Boston is 26-7 and have only lost 2 home games in 16 this year.<\/p>\n

San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich was not pleased with San Antonio’s effort on Tuesday in their contest against New York, a 129-115 loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we score 115 points, I expect to win,\u201d Popovich sad. \u201cOur defense was pathetic. It was our worst defense of the year. Nothing else tricky about it.<\/p>\n

Popovich seemed to throw in the towel early.\u00a0 He took Duncan and Parker out of the game when down by 10 with three minutes left to play — plenty of time to mount a comeback — and he did not put them back in the game.\u00a0 Despite San Antonio’s 115 points, both Duncan and Ginobili inexplicably had underwhelming games, combining for only 29 points.<\/p>\n

Tonight should be interesting.\u00a0 The total is the most peculiar aspect.\u00a0 Where do you set the total when you pit one of the league’s best offenses in San Antonio against the best defense in the NBA in Boston?\u00a0 Will the two nuetralize or will a fast paced (or slow paced) game take over and be dictated by one team?\u00a0 It should be interesting to see.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

San Antonio has won 14 of their last 16 and 10 of their last 13 on the road.\u00a0 They are 2-5 in their last 7 against Boston, but they have won 20 of the past 25.\u00a0 They are 2-7 ATS in their last 9 against the Celtics and the total has gone UNDER in 7 of their last 10 games against Boston.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 7 of the last 10 road games, as well.\u00a0 San Antonio has won 11 of the last 12 in Boston.<\/p>\n

Boston is 2-5 ATS in their last 7 games.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER In 7 of their last 8 games and they have won 17 of their last 20 games overall.\u00a0 They are 9-1 in their last 10 at home and are 5-9-1 ATS in their last 15 at home.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of their last 6 at home.<\/p>\n

Key matchups:
\n
\nTim Duncan vs Glen “Big Baby” Davis<\/strong><\/p>\n

With Garnett out with the sprained knee, “Big Baby” has received another opportunity, as he did in the 08-09 playoffs, to step up and start.\u00a0 And just like then, he has made the most of it.\u00a0 Last game against Minnesota, Davis launched up 15 shots from the floor, hitting 7 en route to 17 points for the game.\u00a0 While in terms of names you would say Duncan has the big advantage here, at this point in his career that isn’t necessarily so.\u00a0 Big Baby, despite his massive frame, has a speed advantage that he can exploit against Duncan and an effective mid range jumper that will keep Duncan “honest” on defense.\u00a0 Duncan should be able to get his jumpers off at will over the much shorter Davis (who is probably about 6’6″, though listed at an absurd 6’9″) and will have his opportunities to improve upon his lackluster performance against New York.
\n
\nTony Parker & George Hill vs Rajon Rondo<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one promises to be exciting.\u00a0 Rondo is one of the quickest point guards to play in the NBA — ever — and Parker and Hill are no turtles either.\u00a0 Rondo has yet to get his scoring going since returning from injury (5 ppg in 2 games), but did record 16 assists in the 3 point win against the Timberwolves.\u00a0 He’s averaging a career high 13.6 assists this year, over three assists more than the second highest average in the NBA.\u00a0 Parker is still pretty young at 28, and hasn’t yet started to slow down.\u00a0 He’s one of the few defenders that can keep Rondo in front of him, and he’s having a much better year than his injury plagued 09-10 season.\u00a0 His “tear drop” jumper has been executed to near perfection and enables him to get a lot of shots off over taller players by arcing the ball so high.\u00a0 With Shaquille O’Neal and Jermaine O’Neal patrolling the paint, both good shot blockers, you can expect to see Parker attempting many of them tonight.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s game promises to be a great clash between superpowers in the NBA.\u00a0 Vegas oddsmakers have set the line very close, and it’s really hard pressed to say who has the advantage here.\u00a0 The guard play will go a long way towards determining the outcome, as both point guards will have their hands full with one another trying to prevent dribble penetration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs AT Boston Celtics Wednesday, Jan 5, 2011 at 7:35 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Boston -2 Current Line:\u00a0 Boston -2.5 Opening Total: 191 Current Total: 190 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Boston -130 \/ San Antonio +110 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Boston -130 \/ San Antonio +110 Tonight’s game brings together the best team in each conference, record-wise, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":5479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[120,197,141],"class_list":["post-12203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-boston-celtics","tag-rajon-rondo","tag-san-antonio-spurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12203","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=12203"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12205,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12203\/revisions\/12205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}