NBA Basketball Odds: Golden State Warriors at Boston Celtics

Added on Mar 04, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

A non conference game that doesn’t look like much on paper actually provides a decent wagering opportunity as the Golden State Warriors travel to the TD BankNorth Garden to face the Boston Celtics. Celtics in cruise control, winning 7 of their last 10 and lead the Eastern Conference by 2 games over the Miami Heat. The Warriors are showing some progress relative to their performance in recent years–they’ve become a solid home team but still struggle on the road.

Golden State Warriors at Boston Celtics
March 4, 2011 4:35 PM Pacific

This is the sort of matchup that the ‘public’ player will look at and immediately dismiss the visiting Golden State Warriors as an ‘inferior team’. We’re not going to suggest that this isn’t the case in the ‘big picture’, but there’s a lot of reasons to look at the road underdog in this matchup. The Celtics have a lot of injuries at the moment–joining Shaquille O’Neal and Jermaine O’Neal who have been out for awhile are more recent (and hopefully less severe) injuries to Glen ‘Big Baby’ Davis and Delonte West who’ve both been ruled out for this game with ankle injuries. Ray Allen is also suffering from a minor leg injury though is listed as ‘probable’ here.

Golden State has become a more defensively oriented team this year under coach Keith Smart (again ‘relatively speaking’) but they still play an uptempo style that can give Eastern Conference teams trouble due to their unfamiliarity with facing this type of team. This is definitely the case here and Golden State has actually dominated the series from a pointspread perspecitive–Warriors have covered 4 of the last 5 meetings including 2 straight in Boston. Going back to 1996 the Warriors are 17-9 ATS against the Celtics. Compounding this trend is Boston’s struggles as a favorite in this price range–this season they’re 4-0 SU as a home chalk of -9′ to -12 points and they’re 25-7 SU since 2008. Against the spread? They’re 1-3 ATS this year and 9-23 ATS since 2008. They’re also 5-16 ATS this season after a win of 10+ points. The tactical matchup dynamic the Warriors pose gives all Atlantic Division teams fits–they’re 4-2 ATS against the Atlantic Division this year and 20-6 ATS since 2008! We don’t expect the Warriors to get the outright victory, but we also don’t expect Boston to be able to get the margin necessary to cover this price.

Bet Golden State Warriors +9′ over Boston Celtics