{"id":12924,"date":"2011-01-30T09:45:35","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T14:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12924"},"modified":"2011-01-30T09:45:35","modified_gmt":"2011-01-30T14:45:35","slug":"hollywood-spotlight-boston-celtics-at-los-angeles-lakers-pro-basketball-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/hollywood-spotlight-boston-celtics-at-los-angeles-lakers-pro-basketball-picks-12924\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood Spotlight: Boston Celtics at Los Angeles Lakers Pro Basketball Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics at Los Angeles Lakers
\nSunday, 1\/30\/11, 3:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ABC
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Los Angeles -3
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Los Angeles -2.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 186
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 183.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Los Angeles Lakers are small home favorites in hosting the Boston Celtics Sunday afternoon at Staples Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston enters Sunday\u2019s contest leading the Eastern Conference with a solid 35-11 record, but will need to be much better than its 88-71 losing performance on the road against Phoenix last time out to pull off an underdog win.\u00a0 \u201cWe just didn\u2019t have it tonight,\u201d said point guard Rajon Rondo.\u00a0 \u201cNobody played well at all and it starts with me.\u201d\u00a0 The Celtics are 13-8 overall on the road this season, including just a 3-2 mark against Western Conference competition.\u00a0 The two teams split two meetings in the regular season during the 2009-10 campaign and of course met up for a thrilling seven-game series in the finals, which the Celtics ultimately dropped.\u00a0 Boston is 32-22 ATS as an underdog over the last three years and currently getting points on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Celtics are currently shooting a league-high 49.9 percent as a team and are the only squad in the league close to 50 percent on the season.\u00a0 The second ranked team to Boston in the category happens to be Phoenix, who is shooting 47.2 percent from the field.\u00a0 Leading the offensive charge during the month of January is guard Ray Allen, who\u00a0 is knocking down 52.6 percent of his attempts from beyond the arc.\u00a0 Coach Doc Rivers is surprised that not one of his players was chosen to represent the Eastern Conference as a starter in the All-Star Game, considering the shooting numbers his team possesses and its overall record. \u201cTo look at our record and to have no starters is surprising,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 \u201cBut not really, because we\u2019re such a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Los Angeles is coming off an embarrassing 100-95 home loss to Sacramento on Friday night, a performance that will cause many fans to have an uneasy feeling entering the Staples Center.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve had some tough losses that kind of jump out at you, but it\u2019s just about being more consistent,\u201d said Kobe Bryant.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re right where we need to be.\u201d\u00a0 The Lakers are comfortably in second place in the Western Conference with a 33-14 record and will look to improve their record to 16-4 against foes from the East.\u00a0 Los Angeles has garnered a 10-4 record during the month and is 6-4 on Sundays this season.\u00a0 The team is 5-7 ATS off an upset loss as a favorite during the 2010-11 campaign.<\/p>\n

The Lakers have a losing 120-152 record against the Celtics in the all-time series and the mark was a topic of conversation this week due to the rumors of Boston forward Kevin Garnett creating a shoe with the numbers represented.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 6-4 against Boston in the last 10 regular season meetings and it\u2019s important to note that Bryant will be meeting Shaquille O\u2019Neal on the court this afternoon.\u00a0 In Bryant and O\u2019Neal\u2019s 10 career head-to-head meetings, the Lakers All-Star guard is averaging 34.4 points, while O\u2019Neal checks in with an 18.4-point average.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Celtics due to their 13-5-1 ATS mark in the last 19 meetings, while the Lakers are 10-14 ATS at home.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on the biggest plays this Sunday and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports go to work for you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics at Los Angeles Lakers Sunday, 1\/30\/11, 3:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ABC Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Los Angeles -3 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Los Angeles -2.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 186 Current Total:\u00a0 183.5 Boston enters Sunday\u2019s contest leading the Eastern Conference with a solid 35-11 record, but will need to be much better than its 88-71 losing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[120,764,67,68,197,3624],"class_list":["post-12924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-boston-celtics","tag-kevin-garnett","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-rajon-rondo","tag-staples-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12924","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=12924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12925,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12924\/revisions\/12925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}