So much for prevailing thought. The Celtics went into this series feeling that they had a pretty good shot at taking out the No. 2-seed Knicks. <\/p>\n
Eastern Conference<\/strong> ATS Matchup Stats<\/a> | Gambling Insight!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Check out our in-house Handicapper!!! Buy Razor Ray’s NBA Picks Today!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Boston backers felt that the Knicks are basically a one-on-one team, and that the Celtics\u2019 many could stop the Knicks\u2019 one \u2013 Carmelo Anthony.<\/p>\n The score so far \u2013 Anthony 1, Celtics 0.<\/p>\n Melo laid 39 on the Celtics\u2019 heads on Saturday in Game 1 of the series, what passes for the Celtics bench accumulated a total of 4 points and the Knicks allowed only 8 points in the final 12 minutes in winning a game that they could have and probably should have lost.<\/p>\n Boston\u2019s late-season strategy doesn\u2019t appear to have paid off. Doc Rivers basically gave cornerstones Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett time off whenever he felt they needed it, and winning took a back seat to getting healthy and rested for perhaps the team\u2019s last toboggan ride.<\/p>\n But all time off appears to have fostered is a losing culture. The Celtics went 5-11 over the final month of the regular season, and looked absolutely gassed in the fourth quarter of Game 1 when a 7-point lead evaporated and Boston couldn\u2019t get off a decent shot. Jeff Green (26) led the Celtics in scoring but as has happened so many times, he turtled when it was nut crunching time.<\/p>\n River thinks the road to recovery goes through Garnett, who huffed and puffed his way through an ineffective (4-for-12) 8-point effort in nearly 37 minutes. [ad-6571516]<\/p>\n For all his scoring prowess, the Knicks were actually outscored by 3 points during the time Anthony was on the court. The real damage was done by PG Ray Felton, J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin, who combined for 38 points and provided just enough offense to make the Celtics pay for help defense against Melo.<\/p>\n New York newspapers weren\u2019t too impressed with the Knicks\u2019 performance in Game 1, and claim that Boston may have blown its best chance of winning at Madison Square Garden. The Celtics did, after all, stay alive by making all 19 of their free throws.<\/p>\n Celtics stock peaked in the three weeks after the Rondo\/Sullinger injury plague and Boston pulled together. But that was then and this is now, and instead of the Celtics of old, we\u2019re seeing just the old Celtics.<\/p>\n It could all change with one pull-together effort at MSG on Tuesday night, but there\u2019s no evidence that Boston can get it done. New York should get the cover in this one, and if that doesn\u2019t do it for you, we\u2019d suggest an over play.<\/p>\n These teams shot a combined 41 percent in Game 1 \u2013 during the regular season Boston shot 46. 5 and the Knicks were at 44.8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Celtics vs Knicks NBA Handicapping So much for prevailing thought. The Celtics went into this series feeling that they had a pretty good shot at taking out the No. 2-seed Knicks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":27605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[48544,58890,58889,48546,10169,4045,2886,8667,23074,1595,12358,58879,11729],"class_list":["post-61771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-boston-celtics-vs-n-y-knicks","tag-boston-celtics-vs-n-y-knicks-odds","tag-celtics-knicks-free-prediction","tag-celtics-knicks-picks","tag-celtics-vs-knicks","tag-free-nba-picks","tag-game-2","tag-nba-basketball-lines","tag-nba-betting-picks","tag-nba-gambling","tag-nba-playoff-picks","tag-nba-playoffs-odds","tag-round-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61771"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61814,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61771\/revisions\/61814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u00a0<\/strong>Boston Celtics (0-1) at New York Knicks (1-0)<\/strong>
\n Tuesday, April 23<\/strong>
\n Madison Square Garden, New York<\/strong>
\n 8 p.m. EST<\/strong>
\n Spread \u2013 Knicks -6.5 at TopBet<\/a><\/strong>
\n O\/U \u2013 185.5<\/strong><\/p>\nCLICK GRAB OUR BEST Expert NBA Picks for 2013 HOOPS GAMBLING season!<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n
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