boston celtics thoughts

[dankhank]

here are a few observations about the boston celtics at this point in the nba season. it was tough to write an evaluation sooner because the celts spent almost all of november at home, so we only saw one version of the team essentially. at certain points in november they looked decent, but without seeing the celtics on the road you can't really judge them.

boston is led of course by paul pierce, who is having his best season in the nba so far. he's fifth in the league in points, and has really developed his game from a couple years back. he is defending and attacking the basket better than ever, plus has become a stronger leader. the thing with pierce is from time to time he has major "off" nights where he shoots horribly and plays lazily. generally these happen on the road, and either against a bad team or a very good team. it is hard to predict these nights from a betting standpoint, but they can easily be the difference between a cover or no cover.

ricky davis is also having his best year. this is to be expected, he's coming into what should be the prime of his career, ala pierce.

currently the players i'm most interested in are point guard delonte west and center kendrick perkins. west is a second year player and he started off poorly but has already stepped up his game slightly - i like delonte's game a lot and just wonder how quickly he will develop. however, whenever he's gone up against experienced top point guards, they have showed him some things.

perk is a rookie currently starting, due to the fact that the celtics are a horrible rebounding team, and he is the best big-body/hustle man inside. mark blount began the season at center and is playing well actually, but they are trying to solve their rebounding troubles. perkins played great in his first start but we will have to see - he is an offensive liability and im not sure he can get 12+ boards every night.

raef lafrentz, al jefferson, and brian scalabrini are the other bigs and none of these guys are strong defensively or rebounding the ball. they can all score though. the team basically rebounds by committee. pierce averages twice as many rebounds (9) as anyone else.

i had success fading the celtics in late november when they were struggling, but they have played better than expected in their current road trip, winning two of three. the thing is, the celtics have traditonally been a horrible road team in the pierce era. last year they were 18-23 on the road yet won the division.

where i see boston struggling most is against teams a) with top shelf point guards that west can't handle (their backup pg spot is shaky too) and b) strong rebounding teams, especially strong rebounding teams with a _bench_, as the celts are not deep at all. memphis and charlotte fit criteria b) and are 3-0 ats vs boston.

overall i think boston is a decent team - i like them more now than at the start of the season due to west's improvement. i think they are as good as anyone in the atlantic actually - although i haven't seen new jersey play yet. they play with a good amount of composure and have a fairly consistent effort night to night - pierce, davis, blount, and lafrentz are all veterans and have been together for a few seasons, and in the east they play a lot of teams that are less experienced.

so in a sense boston may be undervalued, but i still don't know at what rate they are going to totally dog road games this season. so imo they're not a team to regularly bet on yet (they're 6-12 ats so far), but rather you want to fade them on nights where there's a strong possibility there will be no sense of urgency.

for betting on them you want to look for home games where perhaps the other team is overvalued, or boston really needs a win and it's against a team where they can get it. the celtics effort at home is usually pretty reliable.

that all being said, i said i would make a play on boston for tonight's game if the spread was in double digits, and sure enough they are getting +11.5 at san antonio. the basis for the play is simply boston has played better on their current road trip than anticipated. they are not a bottom dweller team in the nba, and usually its only bottom dwellers that get +10's and up. if you look at san antonio's results they are winning games by 7-15, not 20+. so i like one unit tonight:

boston +11.5