{"id":28586,"date":"2013-04-19T22:52:29","date_gmt":"2013-04-20T03:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=28586"},"modified":"2013-04-19T22:52:29","modified_gmt":"2013-04-20T03:52:29","slug":"nba-playoff-picks-boston-celtics-vs-new-york-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-playoff-picks-boston-celtics-vs-new-york-knicks-28586\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Playoff Picks: Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks
\nSaturday, 4\/20\/13, 3:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 New York -7
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 New York -7
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 193.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 189
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Celtics
The Boston Celtics are dangerous road underdogs in Game 1 against the New York Knicks Saturday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boston finished with a 41-40 overall record during the 2012-13 NBA regular season, as it didn\u2019t get to play its home finale due to recent events surrounding the Patriots Day\u2019 bombings.\u00a0 \u201cI think when you go through tragedy as a city you kind of look for something to cling on to,\u201d commented Celtics forward Paul Pierce.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re going to go out there and do the best we can in wake of the tragedy.\u201d\u00a0 The team did drop three of four series meetings this year.\u00a0 Boston is 3-7 SU and 5-5 ATS as road underdogs of 6.5 to 9 points this season, which can\u2019t be ignored when making your NBA picks against the spread.<\/p>\n

The Celtics were 14-27 away from the TD Garden, but went 12-14 versus Eastern Conference opponents.\u00a0 Pierce leads a group of three starters that average in double figures, as he enters scoring 18.6 points and grabbing 6.3 rebounds per game.\u00a0 Boston was outscored 98.3 to 90.5 on average in the four meetings this season, as it shot 45.4 percent from the field overall, but just 27.2 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

New York enters the postseason as one of the hottest teams in the league, as it captured its sixth Atlantic Division title in franchise history and first since the 1993-94 season.\u00a0 The Knicks secured the No. 2 seed in the East, which means it wouldn\u2019t potentially meet the Miami Heat until the conference finals.\u00a0 \u201cThat was our goal to lock down home court and we did that,\u201d commented Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony.\u00a0 He finished as the NBA\u2019s leading scorer, averaging 28.7 points per game.\u00a0 New York is 10-3 SU and 8-5 ATS as home favorites of 6.5 to 9 points, which is important to consider when looking over the pro basketball odds page.<\/p>\n

The Knicks were 31-10 at Madison Square Garden this year, including a 20-6 mark versus conference rivals.\u00a0 Anthony will certainly try to get off to a hot start in Game 1, considering he led all players in averaging 9.0 points in the first quarter.\u00a0 Reserve J.R. Smith is another man to watch on the perimeter, as he ranked first among all players coming off the bench in scoring 18.1 points per game.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely back the Celtics due to their 12-5 ATS mark versus teams with a winning record.<\/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":"

Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks Saturday, 4\/20\/13, 3:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 New York -7 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 New York -7 Opening Total:\u00a0 193.5 Current Total:\u00a0 189 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Boston finished with a 41-40 overall record during the 2012-13 NBA regular season, as it didn\u2019t get to play its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[120,49,3622,3902,18,115,846],"class_list":["post-28586","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-madison-square-garden","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-paul-pierce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28586","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=28586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28587,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28586\/revisions\/28587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}