The Boston Celtics have had a few rough outings in the last week, but they’re still the third best team in the Eastern Conference based on overall record while their opponents on Monday night, the Detroit Pistons, would be out of a playoff spot if the season ended today, even in a shallow Eastern Conference.
This war on the floor will go down Monday, January 30, 2017, at 8 p.m. ET at TD Garden. The game will be televised live on TNT.
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Odds Analysis
The Celtics got a huge win over a very good Houston team on Tuesday night to snap a three game losing streak.
Defense has been hard to come by for Boston and was a struggle again on Tuesday, allowing 109 points, but the offense came through scoring 120. That 109 points allowed was still the team’s lowest point total allowed in four games.
The Pistons, meanwhile, are a very streaky team. They did beat the Celtics earlier this year on the road, but they’re typically a much better home team. While just 9-15 on the road, they’re 12-10 at home and 11-11 ATS at TD Garden.
On the other side of the hardwood, the Celtics are 24-19-2 ATS this season and a very strong 14-7-2 ATS on the road, but have dropped three of their last four ATS.
Last Meeting
These two teams have already faced off a couple of times; splitting these two games with the road team getting the win each time. Still, it’s been a little while since they went head-to-head.
The last meeting between these teams came on November 30 with the Pistons beating the Celtics in Boston, 121-114. That coming just a couple weeks after a 94-92 loss in Detroit; as such, we’ve seen both a high scoring affair and a more defensive-minded meeting.
In the more recent game, and the one at TD Garden, the Pistons went off offensively, shooting 55.2-percent from the floor, much improved from the 43-percent mark in the previous loss.
Marcus Morris, Tobias Harris and Andre Drummond each played and shot well in both games, but the biggest difference was on the parameter where Kentavious Caldwell-Pope shot 10-for-17 on November 30 for 25 points while leading the team with a +15 in the point differential while on the court. That’s a big shift from a couple weeks earlier when the Detroit backcourt was rather silent, particularly on offense.
Interestingly, the Pistons won the battle inside the paint in both games, outscoring Boston in that scenario in both games. The Celtics, however, despite better play by the Piston’s guards in the second games won the fast break points. They also beat Detroit on rebounds in the first meeting, but loss considerably in the second with Drummond recording 17 boards all by himself.
Players to Watch
A key matchup in this game could be between centers: Al Horford and Drummond.
We saw that the team to win the rebounding battle in the first two meetings took the victory despite one game being a high scoring affair and one a defensive battle.
Drummond’s 17 boards in the second game was a huge part of Detroit’s victory, giving the team a number of second chances on offense and clearing the ball out of the Piston’s territory on defense.
Drummond is the clearly superior rebounder with 13.5 RPG compared to just 6.6 for Horford, though the rest of the Celtics team help chip in better than the Pistons.
The Piston’s center will need to dominant the boards again to help slow a hot Celtics offense and give Detroit a chance. He’s recorded eight straight games with at least 10 rebounds and hasn’t recorded less than eight since December 19.
Free NBA ATS Picks
Isaiah Thomas is the key player in this game, obviously. He’s having a very strong January even if the Celtics have been a bit inconsistent.
The star guard is averaging 32.9 PPG in January which isn’t far off the Celtics’ monthly scoring record of 33.5 PPG put up by Paul Pierce in 2006.
In the end, look for plenty of points on the board from Thomas, Jae Crowder and Horford as the Boston offense continues to roll despite a strong defense in Detroit. On the other side, the Celtics’ defense has struggled, but the Pistons’ lackluster offense poses a nice matchup.
NBA Odds: Celtics 106, Pistons 99
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