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The matchup between the top two teams in the Eastern Conference was going to be a good one anyway. There could be just a bit more intrigue with Isaiah Thomas ready to play after healing all season from a hip injury. Thomas led the Boston Celtics to the conference finals last season before his team was eliminated by the Cleveland Cavaliers. The teams swapped superstar guards in the offseason with disgruntled Kyrie Irving heading to Beantown. The Cavs have done well without IT, but he could be what turns them into East champs once again.
Don’t miss the hardwood action from TD Garden at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday, January 3, 2017. Catch every moment of the game live on ESPN. We’ll have NBA opening odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the NBA Wednesday schedule.
Odds Analysis
The recent road trip wasn’t kind and the Cavaliers are 0-4 SU and ATS in their last four games away from home. Overall, they’ve lost five straight ATS and are just 1-8 ATS in their last nine games. Things have mellowed out for the Celtics with wins in their last three games after they split their previous 12 games. We didn’t expect them to continue at their torrid pace when they ran off 16 straight victories earlier this season. But they are better than a .500 club and they’ll be laying a few points to the defending East champs.
Scheduling Situation
A difficult part of the Cavaliers schedule got a little more trying after they failed to get a win in their three-game Western Conference swing, which included a pair of defeats against sub-.500 teams Sacramento and Utah. The Cavs return home for a brief stay to face Portland before going back on the road again starting with the Celtics in the first of five more on the road and the second game of a back-to-back.
The schedule evens out in the end, but the Cavs are in the middle of a stretch where they play eight of nine games away from home with their matchup against the Blazers the lone contest at The Q. The league made an effort to limit the number of back-to-backs teams play and this is just the seventh such situation for the Cavs this season. They are 3-0 SU and ATS in the second game of their last three back-to-backs and they’ve cashed the under in each of their six games.
Last Meeting
The Celtics, and particularly Gordon Hayward, won’t forget the first meeting between the teams. They opened the season against each other back in mid-October and the storyline was the return of Irving to Cleveland after he helped take the Cavs to three straight NBA Finals. After getting ousted by Cleveland in last season’s conference final, the Celtics made a splash by acquiring Irving and signing free agent Gordon Hayward. Hayward’s season ended just five minutes into the game after he sustained a broken ankle and the Celtics dropped the game 102-99.
Boston recovered from the loss of Hayward and overcame an 18-point deficit to take the lead late in the game. LeBron did what he does best to get the Cavs back in front, setting the stage for Irving to potentially send the game into overtime. However, Irving missed a three-point shot at the final buzzer and the Cavs escaped with the victory. Irving had 22 points and 10 assists facing his former team for the first time. Irving wanted out of LeBron’s shadow in Cleveland and now he has a chance to prove he can lead a team by himself.
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The Cavs hit a rough patch with three consecutive losses on a recent road trip, but it didn’t change what they had accomplished prior to that. And the expected arrival of Thomas is only going to boost the spirits in Cleveland. IT is the Kyrie the Cavs need to threaten for another conference title. And while the game has some meaning in terms of the standings, the Cavs said last year and the year before that they don’t care about their seeding.
There’s still plenty of season left and you know the Celtics are looking at this game with a little more importance than the Cavs. And with half a season in the books, Irving is more about winning games than proving his value without LeBron. This is kind of an annual thing with Cleveland when they take a few weeks off and questions pop up about their status in the East. Don’t worry, they’ll be there in the end and probably battle the Celtics at some point. This one, though, belongs to the Celtics.
NBA Odds: Celtics 108, Cavaliers 105
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