{"id":13257,"date":"2011-02-10T11:43:13","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T16:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13257"},"modified":"2011-02-10T11:43:13","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T16:43:13","slug":"nba-rivalry-los-angeles-lakers-at-boston-celtics-pro-basketball-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-rivalry-los-angeles-lakers-at-boston-celtics-pro-basketball-picks-13257\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Rivalry: Los Angeles Lakers at Boston Celtics Pro Basketball Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers at Boston Celtics
\nThursday, 2\/10\/11, 8:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Boston -3
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Boston -2.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 187.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 188<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce will need another big game to pick up the regular season sweep over the Los Angeles Lakers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Los Angeles dropped the first meeting of the season by a 109-96 score at the Staples Center and will now look to gain revenge by winning a third straight regular season road game over Boston.\u00a0 The Lakers are 17-8 on the road this season, but 15 of those games have come against opponents who entered with a sub-.500 record.\u00a0 The squad is 13-2 away from Southern California against losing teams, but 4-6 against winning clubs.\u00a0 Los Angeles carries a solid 36-16 record into this contest and is a dominating 7-1 on the road against Eastern Conference opponents.\u00a0 The team is 13-12 ATS on the road this season and currently an underdog on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Lakers currently trail their season series with the Celtics after splitting last season\u2019s series and sweeping the 2008-09 campaign.\u00a0 Los Angeles knows it must change its non-physical ways to come out of Beantown with a victory.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to be really physical, really solid, really aggressive in order to be successful in Boston,\u201d said forward Pau Gasol.\u00a0 Under head coach Phil Jackson, the Lakers are 13-8 against the Celtics in the regular season.\u00a0 Star Kobe Bryant has helped him tally a winning record in this heated rivalry by averaging 25.5 points in 23 career regular season games.<\/p>\n

Boston is starting to feel the rigors of the regular season on the bench and it showed up in a 94-89 loss to Charlotte last time out.\u00a0 The Celtics need to start getting solid bench play in order to rest the regulars before the playoffs begin.\u00a0 \u201cWhat my concern is with our team is that our starting lineup is set but I think we\u2019ve had like five minutes this year with the bench we thought we were going to play and I don\u2019t even know if we\u2019ve had that yet,\u201d said coach Doc Rivers.\u00a0 The team is 23-4 at home, but has dropped two of the last three at the TD Garden due to nagging injuries.\u00a0 Boston is 17-23 ATS as a favorite and 55-70 ATS at home over the past three years.<\/p>\n

The Celtics are a perfect 17-0 versus conference opponents at home, but have just a regular 6-4 mark against the West.\u00a0 Boston will need another big game from Paul Pierce to capture the regular season series sweep, as he scored a team-high 32 points in the first meeting.\u00a0 All of the team\u2019s focus should be squarely placed on this game after the disappointing loss to the Bobcats, as the best shooting team in the league managed to connect on just 40.8 percent of its shots.\u00a0 \u201cI thought we messed around and tried to win it in the fourth quarter,\u201d said Rivers.\u00a0 \u201cBut we didn\u2019t have anything in the tank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Celtics due to their 22-8 ATS mark after a loss, while the Lakers are 1-10 ATS on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers at Boston Celtics Thursday, 2\/10\/11, 8:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Boston -3 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Boston -2.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 187.5 Current Total:\u00a0 188 Los Angeles dropped the first meeting of the season by a 109-96 score at the Staples Center and will now look to gain revenge by winning […]<\/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":[120,67,68,846,3917],"class_list":["post-13257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-boston-celtics","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-paul-pierce","tag-td-garden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13257","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=13257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13258,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13257\/revisions\/13258"}],"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=13257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}