NBA Betting Free Picks: Boston @ LA Lakers
Added on Jun 17, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
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The NBA betting season concludes on Thursday as the Boston Celtics and LA Lakers play Game 7 of their best of 7 series at the Staples Center. Boston took a 3-2 lead before the series shifted back to Los Angeles, but the Lakers routed them in Game 6 to set up tonight’s decisive contest.
Boston Celtics at Los Angeles Lakers
June 17, 6:05 PM Pacific
The Celtics will be without center Kendrick Perkins, who tore two knee ligaments in game six. This could provide a great opportunity for Pau Gasol to have a big game. Forget about the Celtics 22 points loss in Game 6–there have been forty 20+ point blowouts in NBA finals history and the team at the wrong end of these routs are 22-18 SU in the following game. The Celtics are 5-0 SU after losing by 20+ points in the NBA Finals, with four of those five wins coming against the Lakers. Of course the last time this happened to a Boston team was 1985, but from a historical perspective the Game 6 loss doesn’t mean much.
Of more significance is track record of Game 7 results since the NBA went to the 2-3-2 series format. Since then, the home team is a perfect 5-0 SU in Game 7. In this particular game, that fact means little since the Lakers are a prohibitive -7 point home favorite. In theory, Boston plus the points would make sense here but my gut instinct tells me that the Lakers will win outright.
So we’ll head back to the total–the first two games of this series went Over the total but the four games since have gone Under. 11 of the last 18 head to head meetings overall and 5 of the last 9 meetings in Los Angeles have gone Under. Game 6 went Under by 34 points. The two most likely scenarios tonight are a competitive game that goes right down to the wire, or another Lakers blowout a la Game 6. In either case, the Under looks like the right position. If the Celtics want to make a game of it they have play better team defense, which will produce a low scoring game. And if the Lakers play like they did in Game 6 and shut down the Celtics, it’ll be a low scoring game. There’s been some downward adjustment, but not as much as you’d expect with Game 6 going Under by 34 points.
Bet LA Lakers/Boston Under 187
