{"id":12694,"date":"2011-01-22T17:44:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T22:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12694"},"modified":"2011-01-22T17:44:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T22:44:48","slug":"rondo-vs-wall-boston-celtics-at-washington-wizards-expert-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/rondo-vs-wall-boston-celtics-at-washington-wizards-expert-predictions-12694\/","title":{"rendered":"Rondo vs. Wall: Boston Celtics at Washington Wizards Expert Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics AT Washington Wizards
\nJan 22, 2011 at 7:00 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Boston -6.5
\nCurrent Line: Boston -7
\nOpening Total: 193
\nCurrent Total: 191
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Bos -290 \/ Was +240
\nCurrent Moneyline: Bos -300 \/ Was +250<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Rondo leads the league in assists<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The big frontline that the Celtics assembled has been racking up DNPs at an alarming rate, leaving Celtics fans to wonder whether they will ever truly be at full strength.\u00a0 Shaq just joined Jermaine O’Neal and Kendrick Perkins on the list of injured Celtics’ centers.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s like a soap opera,\u201d said Kevin Garnett, who has missed some games in his own right. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be ready on this team. You never know who\u2019s going to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wizards are actually a decent team at home, with a 12-9 record.\u00a0 It’s just that they are 0-20 on the road which puts a mar on what could have been a decent record if they could have even just played .400 ball and won 8 of those games (that would put them at one game under .500).<\/p>\n

John Wall hasn’t been playing his best basketball and at this point can be all but excluded from the Rookie of the Year race against the Clippers’ Blake Griffin.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Boston is 5-0 SU in their last 5 games and 8-3 SU in their last 11 road games.\u00a0\u00a0 They are 2-4 ATS in their last 6 on the road and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of their last 5 on the road.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 7 of their last 9 games against Washington and Boston is 7-1 SU in their last 8 games against the Wizards.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 10 of the last 13 meetings on the road at Washington.<\/p>\n

Washington is 6-17 SU in their last 23 games and 4-1 SU in their last 5 home games.\u00a0 They are 1-7 SU in their last 8 games against the Celtics and the total has gone OVER in 7 of their last 9 games against Boston.\u00a0 They are 3-7 ATS in their last 10 home games against the Celtics.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/p>\n

Rajon Rondo vs. John Wall<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are undoubtedly two of the best young point guards to come through the NBA in the last 5 years and both will undoubtedly make many all star games over their careers.\u00a0 Rondo is leading the league in assists at over 13 a game and Wall is averaging 9.4 assists a game, a very high total for a rookie.\u00a0 His scoring has suffered of late, and he’s now only averaging 15.1 points per game, but the Wizards thought enough of his play to permanently rid themselves of Gilbert Arenas, who said he felt like a “zombie” in his last days in Washington.\u00a0 Rashard Lewis has joined John Wall’s attack and is playing rejuvenated ball.\u00a0 He faded into obscurity in Orlando but has emerged as a key frontcourt player for the Wizards.<\/p>\n

Kevin Garnett vs. Andray Blatche<\/strong><\/p>\n

Blatche is a bit of a “homeless man’s” Kevin Garnett.\u00a0 Very long and agile like Garnett, he plays much smaller than he is at 6’11”\u00a0 Blatche averages 16.4 points per game and 8.3 boards a game.\u00a0 He also gets 1.5 steals a night and plays 35 minutes a games.\u00a0 Garnett’s numbers now in his old age are similar.\u00a0 Garnett is putting up 15.2 points per game and grabbing 9.2 boards, and like Blatche has a high number of steals with 1.7.\u00a0 Likely, these two players will nuetralize one another, as they are very similar players at this point in Garnett’s career.<\/p>\n

The Celtics are 12-6 on the road, so it’s not as though they are going to be intimidated by the 12-9 home record of the Wizards, but if they don’t come out with enough energy, they could easily blow this game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics AT Washington Wizards Jan 22, 2011 at 7:00 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Boston -6.5 Current Line: Boston -7 Opening Total: 193 Current Total: 191 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Bos -290 \/ Was +240 Current Moneyline: Bos -300 \/ Was +250 The big frontline that the Celtics assembled has been racking up DNPs at an alarming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[3275,120,843,764,197,644],"class_list":["post-12694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-andray-blatche","tag-boston-celtics","tag-john-wall","tag-kevin-garnett","tag-rajon-rondo","tag-washington-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12694","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=12694"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12696,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12694\/revisions\/12696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}