Sunday Night NBA

By Divol

Los Angeles Lakers v Boston Celtics



7th June 01:05 GMT
ESPN (00:30-04:00)

Why Lakers? Well first of all, Lakers are ready to be NBA champions and even if they lose Game 2, they will win it, so when they need to win 3 out of 6 games, taking them is a good idea, at least for me. Second, Boston, besides KG didn't have a bad game, Lakers just played great defence on them. Allen was forced at least twice to shoot three pointers with Laker’s big man in his face and it wasn't even close. Once Gasol blocked him and it was a 24 second violation and the second time he missed and then we saw Garnett miss two lay ups. Garnett is the only one that played poorly most of the minutes on both ends of the floor, missing good shots and hesitating shooting the ball. Still, in the beginning of the 2nd half, he held Boston close to the Lakers for 4 - 5 minutes and if it wasn't for him, 3rd quarter could have easily ended up a 25 - 30 point’s advantage for the Lakers. Pierce did his thing scoring and rebounds wise, Sheed came to work and Boston bench beat Lakers bench, with Odom scoring only 5 points and grabbing only 5 boards. Perkins did his job as well. Rondo is injured and I continue to say that it hurts his game badly, so I doubt he will have the same series he had against Cleveland. So it leaves us with Allen, who still scored 12 points last night (while averaging 16) and KG, that despite all the talks of a poor night, as I said he kept Boston in the game for 4 - 5 minutes, scored 16 points (while averaging only 14.9) and shot almost 50%. Boston didn't play that bad. It was Lakers that played that good. As I have said already, the desire for revenge makes players go over the top, while Boston must have thought they will get a similar Lakers version of 2008 and they have been wrong.

So as far as Game 2 goes, I think we will see an even better Lakers, with Odom coming to work and Kobe may explode after having a really quite game in Game 1. Fisher was very mediocre and we know he can shoot and I believe that unlike Game 1, when Odom + Kobe + Fisher + Sasha + Farmar - scored only one three pointer in five attempts (and it was a garbage time three pointer with 2 second until the end of the match by Kobe), but it will be 4 - 5 made three pointers.

Boston on the other hand, probably plays the same way on offense, but will play better on defence, but with Lakers better offense, it won't help them. 103 - 85 for the Lakers sounds like a reasonable result, maybe 99 - 85, but it should stay below 190 points and Lakers still winning by double digits. Garnett's plays are simple. He has got a lot of focus after the first game and he should come out strong. Both he and his team realize that if Gasol will continue to control the matchup between them in such a one sided manner, it will end up with a sweep and Garnett will do the best he can to respond to those that doubt him with a much better performance on both ends of the floor.

I also like two other props - One is for Odom -4.5 points against Davis. I long thought if I prefer to take Odom Over 10.5 points or Odom -4.5 against Davis, since both are good bets. Odom was limited in Game 1 due to very quick foul trouble and that explains his low minutes. But today I don't know how long will Davis play. Davis can't really guard any of the Lakers big guys. They are all strong, quick and big and I think that Sheed will get much more minutes instead of both Perkins and Davis and that leads me to the final props play. Bynum -2.5 points against Perkins.  Perkins scored 4 from 5 from FT's line and that is 60% FT shooter and still scored two points less than Bynum. I believe that today Boston will try to space the floor as much as they can and if KG gives his regular game, the need for Perkins on the defensive end won't be as big as it was in Game 1. As you can see, the props plays tonight are all on both teams big man with the assumption that KG will play better on both ends of the floor and it will hurt the other two Celtics players, Perkins and Davis.

I like the bet in Stan James, who will score the most baskets from the list of players they give. They assume that most of the chances it will be Davis from Boston or Brown from Lakers, but I'm not sure they are right. I will take my chances on Robinson from the Celtics or Farmar from the Lakers. First of all, I don't a see big difference between Farmar and Brown. Both have an even chance to play and score from Jackson and Farmar usually does a good job against Boston, so he should be favourite and not the other way around. Nate is very explosive player. When he gets in to his rhythm, he can score 3 - 4 baskets in a row, so 9.00 odds he got also too good to pass.



Picks:

Lakers -6 - 1.97 odds - 2 units play - Pinnacle

Boston Under 92.5 points - 1.91 odds - 2 units play -

Garnett Over 7.5 rebounds - 1.83 odds - 2 units play - Bet365

Garnett +3.5 rebounds against Gasol - 1.85 - 2 units play - Gamebookers

Bynum -2.5 points against Perkins - 1.85 odds - 1.5 units play - Gamebookers

Odom -4.5 points against Davis - 1.8 odds - 1.5 units play – Gamebookers

Farmar to score the most - 5.00 odds - 1 units play - Stan James

Nate to score the most - 9.00 odds - 0.35 units play - Stan James

Divol