Handicapper: Nite Owl Sports
Sport: NBA Basketball
Game: Atlanta Hawks @ Boston Celtics - Sunday May 4, 2008 1:00 pm
Pick: 5 units (Bonus Play*) ATS: Boston Celtics -14 (-110)
Coming off of our biggest win of the NBA playoffs, for +5 units last night on the New Orleans Hornets over the SA Spurs (3 units on our ATS pick, and two on our money line pick), we now turn our attention to game 7 in this surprisingly competitive series between the top seeded Boston Celtics and the #8 Atlanta Hawks. This game is a good news bad news story. First let's get the bad news out of the way -- as is obvious from our 3 unit pick on Boston to wrap things up in game 6, we never thought this series would go this far. And while we don't like to make excuses when we lose, we can't just "let it go" about the officiating, with home loving Hawks getting to FT line 43 times compared to Boston's 25. If David Stern really wants to restore credibility about NBA officials being "neutral and impartial," in the wake of the major betting and game fixing scandal involving a now dismissed NBA referree who was officiating games as recently as last year, he should tell the "head official" to have his "crews" do a better job (than they did Friday night in Atlanta) evening out the calls between home and road teams. But it's OK with us if he waits until Monday to do that. In any event, all of that bad news from game 6 leads to the good news, which is that we now have a game 7 and another opportunity to pound the Celtics back home in Boston, where they have creamed the Hawks in all 3 series home games, most recently by 25 in game 5. And like they were in game 5 after losing games 3 and 4 in Atlanta, the Celtic players will be angry about losing game 6, but even more so this time, given the way that game 6 loss happened (getting "jobbed" by the refs), and they will again take it out on the Hawks, who seemed to 'fly around" aimlessly when on the road for pretty much the entire season, especially when visiting A teams like Boston, against whom they were a pathetic 4-12 ATS on the road, with an average MOL (margin of loss) of 15 PPG. And it's this revenge factor that we believe will prevent any "back door cover" by the Hawks, despite the large spread, as Celtics kept their "foot on the gas pedal" for the full 48 minutes in game 5, and we expect nothing less in this key game 7.
But for those who are concerned about giving so many points, we have a suggestion, if you have access to individual team totals, and that's to bet under for the total # of points to be scored by atlanta in this game. While official individual team totals have not yet been released as we post this pick on Sat afternoon, we are confident that the number will be around 88, as it has been near that for games 1,2 and 5, and that's what we come up with using the point spread of Boston -14 and the full game total of 190 (102 +88, with difference of 14, equals 190). When Celtics are motivated, as they surely will be for this game, they can be counted on to "lock down" on defense, as they have in holding Hawks to 87, 81 and 85 points in ganes 1, 2 and 5 in Boston. This way, if even if Boston does not shoot the lights out like they did in game 5, and they win by something like 97-84 w/o covering, we still win on the Atlanta under 87. But since we believe both bets will win, our recommendation is to use this individual team totals play in addition to, not instead of, playing Boston at -14 or better. So if you have access to individual team totals, we suggest putting 3 units on Boston at -14 or better and 3 units on under 88 or better for # of points to be scored by Atlanta., for a total of six units. If you don't have access to individual team totals, we suggest putting 5 units on Boston at -14 or better.
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