Andre Gomes Available Picks

June, 17 2008 9:00pm EST
TOTAL: Under 191.5 (-110)
LOSS for -3 unit(s)

Los Angeles Lakers at Boston Celtics

Game 6 of this final with the real possibility of having a new champion today, in case Boston wins at home today. Having in account their two games at home and the heart they've showed in these last two games, the team of Boston is clearly favorite today, however, the Lakers have still a shot to at least take the decision to a Game 7. Today's lines favor Boston by 4 points and the totals line is at 191,5 points which fits in the previous lines of this series [191,5 - 195,5]. And it's exactly in the totals where we can get more value from this game. After three games at LA, today's game will be at Boston, which obligated the teams to a very long and tiring trip from the West coast to the East. For you to have an idea of how tiring was the comeback trip to Boston, the trip was six hours long and if we add more three hours which have involved all the other procedures, we have a notion of what the players needed to pass. To make things even worse, the team of Boston was stopped in the airport thanks to a delay in their flight:

"As of 4 p.m. EDT today, the Celtics' plane was still on the ground in Los Angeles due to mechanical issues.At 5:30 p.m., Celtics radio announcer Cedric Maxwell reported on sports radio WEEI that a 757 had been flown in to take the Celtics back to Boston on a direct flight."

If we add all of this to the most important: between the Game 5 and today's game there was just one day to rest (day that was mostly used to comeback to Boston), something that will clearly cause problems to both teams today. From the last time this happened, we see two teams completely out of the game in the offense, it was in the Game 3 of this series, where the series come to LA from Boston, with just one day to rest between games. This game ended 87-81, with both teams not reaching 70% FT and in the total not even 40% FG was reached. It's also important to say that not only the physical tiredness will be important today, as the psychological tiredness starts also to be noticed, as we are not talking about a Game 3, but a Game 6, which can be the last game of this finals.

"It's a terrible turnaround," said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "It's as tough as you can have. I think going West to East is tougher. Sleep patterns are messed up.

In the Games 4 and 5, the Lakers started the games with an amazing fashions, outscoring the Celtics in the first quarter by 35-14 and 39-22, which obligated Boston to play on a faster way than they were supposed to play, in order to have an edge over the Lakers. If in the Game 4 this tactic worked of just putting Garnett in the frontcourt and using a small lineup, it didn't work in the Game 5, as Boston ended up losing the game. In the Game 5, Garnett played 33:06, Powe 4:59 and PJ Brown 23:53. Well, today that won't happen for sure! First of all, it will be almost impossible to watch LA having such advantage in the beginning of the game and especially as Boston doesn't have any benefit from playing on a fast paced game against the Lakers, they won the Game 4 playing like that, but the way Boston has dominated the whole season was thanks to an amazing half court defense, obligating their opponents to shoot on very hard positions. It's also important to refer that Perkins was out in the Game 5 and even though his presence isn't guaranteed for today, Boston couldn't adapt his absence on Game 5, as Garnett was in foul trouble very early in the game.

So with the scenario of this game, we are in front of a game which will have few points, with both teams giving everything they have, but without the necessary conditions to do well in the offense, thanks to their physical and psychological tiredness, so with a line similar to the line of the previous games of the series, my bet in here is clearly the under.