{"id":15104,"date":"2011-04-24T01:41:28","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T06:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15104"},"modified":"2011-04-24T01:41:28","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T06:41:28","slug":"game-4-nba-playoff-betting-celtics-on-verge-of-sweeping-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/game-4-nba-playoff-betting-celtics-on-verge-of-sweeping-knicks-15104\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 4 NBA Playoff Betting: Celtics on verge of sweeping Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

2011 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs<\/strong>
\nFirst Round – Game 4<\/strong>
\nBoston Celtics at New York Knicks, Madison Square Garden, New York, NY<\/strong>
\nSunday, April 24, 2011, 3:30 pm Eastern, TV: ABC<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Celtics -1.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Celtics -3.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 195<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 195<\/strong>
\nMoney Line: Celtics -140 \/ Knicks +120<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"76ers
Boston's Paul Pierce scored a game-high 38 points in Game 3 en route to a 113-96 victory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sixth-seeded New York Knicks (42-43) were able to hang around in the first two games of their first-round playoff series with the third-seeded Boston Celtics (59-26) due to outstanding individual performances from Amar\u2019e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony.\u00a0 Neither Stoudmire nor Anthony played well in a 113-96 loss in Game 3 on Friday though, putting the Knicks into an 0-3 hole heading into Sunday\u2019s Game 4 that could end their season.<\/p>\n

The Celtics (-3.5) got a game-high 38 points from Paul Pierce and 32 from Ray Allen in their latest victory and simply have too much experience.\u00a0 Even the youngest member of their starting five Rajon Rondo had his second straight impressive game, totaling 15 points, 11 rebounds and a game-high 20 assists.\u00a0 Rondo had scored 30 points in a 96-93 win in Game 2 and nearly put together a triple-double in the series opener.\u00a0 As dominant as this team has been in the postseason over the last few years, a series sweep has not been accomplished.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been part of a sweep, but I don\u2019t like to think about that stuff \u2013 we don\u2019t worry about that stuff,\u201d Pierce said. \u201cIt\u2019s about getting better one game at a time. We want to close the series, but they\u2019re not going to give it to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York did not have Chauncey Billups available in Game 3 due to a leg injury and probably should have rested Stoudemire as well due to his back spasms.\u00a0 Anthony and Stoudemire combined to make just 6 of 24 shots from the field and totaled 22 points and 14 rebounds between them.\u00a0 Stoudemire had 28 points and 11 boards in Game 1 but struggled in Game 2, although Anthony\u2019s 42-point, 17-rebound effort still kept the Knicks close.\u00a0 Billups is likely out again for Game 4 while Stoudemire has said he will not play if the pain continues to bother him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy game is very explosive \u2013 I love contact, I love to get to the basket, I love to draw fouls, I love to dunk,\u201d Stoudemire said. \u201cAnd so with a bad back, it\u2019s kind of tough to play that way. There are adjustments to be made in order to be effective, but again, I don\u2019t want to get out there and further injure my injury, and so it all depends on how I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knicks covered the spread in the first two games of the series as underdogs before getting blown out at home as 3.5-point favorites.\u00a0 They were 5-2 against the spread in the previous seven meetings with Boston before Game 3.\u00a0 Boston was 1-4 ATS in its previous five games overall before Game 3 and has won the last seven meetings along with nine of 10.<\/p>\n

If you are betting this NBA playoff game between the Knicks & Celtics, make sure to check out the winning NBA picks packages we offer.\u00a0 You can also get free winners on our free NBA picks page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2011 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs First Round – Game 4 Boston Celtics at New York Knicks, Madison Square Garden, New York, NY Sunday, April 24, 2011, 3:30 pm Eastern, TV: ABC Opening Line: Celtics -1.5 Current Line: Celtics -3.5 Opening Total: 195 Current Total: 195 Money Line: Celtics -140 \/ Knicks +120 The sixth-seeded New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":4389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[3115,120,4874,3622,4672,4673,4674,4438,1576,4439,1985,4857,4858,115,4440],"class_list":["post-15104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-abc","tag-boston-celtics","tag-celtics-knicks-playoff-preview","tag-eastern-conference","tag-first-round","tag-first-round-betting","tag-first-round-picks","tag-free-pro-basketball-pick","tag-game-4","tag-nba-basketball-odds","tag-nba-picks","tag-nba-playoff-betting","tag-nba-playoff-picks","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-pro-basketball-betting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15105,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15104\/revisions\/15105"}],"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=15104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}