{"id":12261,"date":"2011-01-07T12:03:31","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T17:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12261"},"modified":"2011-01-07T12:03:31","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T17:03:31","slug":"eastern-conference-betting-preview-toronto-raptors-at-boston-celtics-nba-free-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/eastern-conference-betting-preview-toronto-raptors-at-boston-celtics-nba-free-picks-12261\/","title":{"rendered":"Eastern Conference Betting Preview: Toronto Raptors at Boston Celtics NBA Free Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toronto Raptors at Boston Celtics
\nFriday, 1\/7\/11, 7:30 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Boston -9.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Boston -9.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 199
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 199<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce is red hot and leads the team into battle against the Toronto Raptors on Friday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Toronto travels to Boston for the season series finale against the Celtics on Friday night. \u00a0 The Raptors are looking to split the season series with the Celtics for the first time since 2006-07 and capture a win at TD Garden for the first time since January 23, 2008.\u00a0 The team is coming off a 120-105 win over Cleveland, snapping an 11-game losing streak at the Quicken Loans Arena that dated all the way back to 2004.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to point out that the squad has struggled mightily in second quarters due to significant injuries, being outscored in 13 of the last 14 situations.\u00a0 Toronto is 8-1-2 ATS in Friday games and currently a large underdog on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Raptors will be playing their sixth game away from the Air Canada Centre in their last seven games played tonight.\u00a0 Toronto has just five road victories on the season.\u00a0 Point guard Jose Calderon has been leading the offensive charge for the club, recording 10 or more assists in six of his last seven appearances, averaging 11.4 points and 12.2 assists over that stretch.\u00a0 He will look to lead the squad to consecutive victories for the first time since the star of last month.\u00a0 Center Andrea Bargnani also figures to play an important role in this matchup, leading the team with 21.4 points per game, but he has managed to average just 13.4 points and 5.4 rebounds in the last seven meetings with tonight\u2019s opponent.<\/p>\n

Boston enters Friday\u2019s contest with a dominating 27-7 overall mark and 15-2 record at home.\u00a0 The Celtics are actually a perfect 11-0 at the TD Garden versus Eastern Conference opponents.\u00a0 The team is coming off a hard-fought 105-103 win over the San Antonio Spurs and was led by point guard Rajon Rondo\u2019s triple-double.\u00a0 It was his sixth triple-double of his career and he averaged 12.3 points, 10.3 assists and 4.7 rebounds in the past seven meetings with the Raptors.\u00a0 \u201cI felt a lot better in the past couple of games,\u201d said Rondo about coming back from injury.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m in a little better rhythm and I\u2019m able to push off a little bit more with the ankle.\u201d\u00a0 Boston is 12-27-1 ATS as a home favorite of 5.0 to 10.5 points.<\/p>\n

The Celtics are currently on the longest winning streak in franchise history against Toronto at eight games.\u00a0 Boston tallied a 93-79 win over the Raptors at the Air Canada Centre on January 2, with Paul Pierce scoring a game-high 30 points.\u00a0 Pierce is enjoying a special run at the moment, averaging 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 5.4 assists over the past 11 games.\u00a0 He will likely lead the team to its 15th victory in the the last 17 meetings with Toronto.\u00a0 Boston has also dominated the Raptors at home, going 15-3 in the last 18 match-ups.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Raptors due to the road team being 9-3-1 ATS in the last 13 meetings, while the Celtics are 0-4 ATS as a home favorite.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on all the hard court action and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports get you in the winner\u2019s circle starting tonight!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto Raptors at Boston Celtics Friday, 1\/7\/11, 7:30 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Boston -9.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Boston -9.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 199 Current Total:\u00a0 199 Toronto travels to Boston for the season series finale against the Celtics on Friday night. \u00a0 The Raptors are looking to split the season series with the Celtics for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[120,3622,846,3917,693],"class_list":["post-12261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-boston-celtics","tag-eastern-conference","tag-paul-pierce","tag-td-garden","tag-toronto-raptors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261","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=12261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12262,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261\/revisions\/12262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}