{"id":12825,"date":"2011-01-27T13:09:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T18:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12825"},"modified":"2011-01-27T13:09:20","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T18:09:20","slug":"boston-celtics-at-portland-trail-blazers-pro-basketball-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/boston-celtics-at-portland-trail-blazers-pro-basketball-picks-12825\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Celtics at Portland Trail Blazers Pro Basketball Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics at Portland Trail Blazers
\nThursday, 1\/27\/10, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Boston -4
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Boston -4.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 187
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 183.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Boston Celtics open up their West Coast road trip as a favorite over the Portland Trail Blazers at the Rose Garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston is set to open a four-game western road swing when and will go for a fourth consecutive win over Portland at the Rose Garden Thursday night.\u00a0 The Celtics are coming off an impressive 112-95 win over lowly Cleveland and it\u2019s the type of game that coach Doc Rivers fears the most.\u00a0 \u201cThese are the games I\u2019m more scared of, truthfully,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cWhen we play the contending teams and the teams who are playoff-bound-you know, I know we\u2019re going to be mentally ready from top to bottom.\u201d\u00a0 Half of Boston\u2019s 10 losses have been to sub-.500 teams.\u00a0 The squad is 12-7 overall on the road this season, including just a 2-1 mark against the West.\u00a0 Boston is 20-21 ATS on the season and the NBA lines page is available for all movement leading up to the game.<\/p>\n

The Celtics captured the 2009-10 series against the Blazers by winning both meetings, led by forward Paul Pierce averaging 16.5 points and shooting 50 percent from 3-point range.\u00a0 Point guard Rajon Rondo added a double-double effort with 14.5 points and 10.0 assists.\u00a0 They will be joined by center Kendrick Perkins in the lineup, who just played for the first time since tearing his right anterior cruciate ligament in the NBA finals last season.\u00a0 He scored seven points and grabbed six rebounds in the victory over Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Portland has been dealing with major injuries all season and desperately needs forward LaMarcus Aldridge available for tonight\u2019s battle.\u00a0 He underwent an MRI on his right hip Tuesday after managing nine points in a 96-81 home loss to Sacramento on Monday.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a tough stretch coming up,\u201d said point guard Andre Miller.\u00a0 \u201cWe have to find a way to make it up somehow.\u201d\u00a0 Accomplishing the task may be tough due to dropping 10 of the last 11 meetings against tonight\u2019s opponent.\u00a0 Portland\u2019s .398 all-time winning percentage against Boston is its lowest mark among all current NBA opponents.\u00a0 The squad is 7-8 ATS as an underdog this season and 2-4 against Atlantic division opponents.<\/p>\n

The Blazers must shoot a higher percentage than its opponents to be successful and this is demonstrated in a big way with the team\u2019s 17-1 record when outshooting their opponent.\u00a0 It\u2019s also important to note that the team is 13-1 at the Rose Garden against teams that are currently under the .500 mark, but that will not be the situation against a high caliber team like Boston.\u00a0 Offensively, the team is averaging 98.3 points per game so far in January, reaching the 100-point plateau in seven of its 13 games this month.<\/p>\n

Bettors may have a strong interest in backing the Blazers due to their 33-15 ATS mark as a home underdog, while the Celtics are 2-9-1 ATS following a SU win.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on the best picks anywhere and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports go to work for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics at Portland Trail Blazers Thursday, 1\/27\/10, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Boston -4 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Boston -4.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 187 Current Total:\u00a0 183.5 Boston is set to open a four-game western road swing when and will go for a fourth consecutive win over Portland at the Rose Garden Thursday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[120,1636,830,197,3914],"class_list":["post-12825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-boston-celtics","tag-kendrick-perkins","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-rajon-rondo","tag-rose-garden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12825","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=12825"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12827,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12825\/revisions\/12827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}