{"id":21476,"date":"2012-02-03T13:19:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T18:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=21476"},"modified":"2012-02-03T13:19:15","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T18:19:15","slug":"knicks-vs-celtics-nba-eastern-conference-rivals-meet-friday-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/knicks-vs-celtics-nba-eastern-conference-rivals-meet-friday-night-21476\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks vs. Celtics: NBA Eastern Conference Rivals Meet Friday Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Knicks at Boston Celtics
\nFriday, 2\/3\/12, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread: New York -7
\nCurrent Betting Line: New York -6.5
\nOpening Total: 181.5
\nCurrent Total: 184
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The New York Knicks will play the middle game of a back-to-back-to-back situation Friday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New York is set to play the middle game of a back-to-back-to-back situation Friday night inside the TD Garden, dropping a 105-102 decision to the Chicago Bulls as 3.5-point home underdogs last night.\u00a0 The Knicks have gone \u201cover\u201d the total in their last two contests after failing to do so in four games from Jan. 24-28.\u00a0 \u201cFor the most part, we played extremely hard,\u201d commented Knicks star forward Carmelo Anthony.\u00a0 He has led to the team\u2019s recent offensive outburst in coming back from injury to play in the last two games.\u00a0 New York is 4-7 ATS on the road this season and the \u201cunder\u201d is 10-1 in those contests.<\/p>\n

The Knicks came away with a 106-104 win over the Celtics in their first meeting this season, which actually fell on Christmas Day to open up the NBA\u2019s 2011-12 campaign.\u00a0 New York has failed to cover the spread in the last three meetings, while dropping eight of the last nine meetings in straight-up fashion.\u00a0 New York needs to get some production from its bench to pull off the upset Friday night, getting just six points from reserves in last night\u2019s loss to the Bulls.\u00a0 Power forward Amar\u2019e Stoudemire had his best game of the season on Thursday, scoring 34 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Boston has won six of its last seven games that includes a 100-64 blowout victory over the Toronto Raptors as 9.5-point home favorites.\u00a0 The Celtics have played the last eight contests without starting point guard Rajon Rondo, who has been dealing with a right wrist injury.\u00a0 He is listed as questionable on the injury report, which could be a huge loss in this matchup due to scoring 31 points and dishing out 13 assists in the first meeting with the Celtics.\u00a0 Boston is 9-15 ATS in February the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Celtics are 11-6 versus Eastern Conference foes this season, including a 7-3 mark when playing inside tonight\u2019s venue.\u00a0 Boston has been led by forward Paul Pierce on the offensive end without Rondo in the lineup, as the veteran had a game-high eight assists versus the Raptors.\u00a0 He missed the first three games of the season, including the season-opener with the Knicks.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Knicks due to their 5-2 ATS mark as a road underdog of 5 to 10.5 points, while the Celtics are 2-5 ATS as a home favorite in the same point range.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York Knicks at Boston Celtics Friday, 2\/3\/12, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread: New York -7 Current Betting Line: New York -6.5 Opening Total: 181.5 Current Total: 184 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker New York is set to play the middle game of a back-to-back-to-back situation Friday night inside the TD Garden, dropping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":15684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[120,49,3622,18,115,846,197,3917],"class_list":["post-21476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-boston-celtics","tag-carmelo-anthony","tag-eastern-conference","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-paul-pierce","tag-rajon-rondo","tag-td-garden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21476","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=21476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21477,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21476\/revisions\/21477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}