Andre Gomes Available Picks

May, 12 2008 8:00pm EST
TOTAL: Under 182 (-110)
WIN for +3.64 unit(s)

Boston Celtics at Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cavs defeated Boston in a pretty fashion way by 108-84 in the Game 3 of this series. This was a brutal loss for the Celtics and hopefully for us it opened a very good window of opportunity for the Game 4. What's weird about the team of Boston is that are yet to win a road game in the post season, after such a great record on the road during the regular season. They are 0-4 SU and 0-4 ATS until now in the post season. I remember that the Celtics were the best team of the league during the regular season on the road, with a record of 31-10! So the main question in here is to find out how will the Celtics bounce back in here. Or at least try to bounce back. If against Atlanta they simply tried to beat them on any way because they knew they were superior, against the Cavs I don't think they will risk that much, as the Cavs showed in the Game 1 that it's not impossible for them to win a game at Boston. In my research I've found some stats that go all on the same way: After their latest failure, a 108-84 loss to the Cavaliers here in Cleveland in Game 3 on Saturday night, the Celtics had a very intense practice for close to an hour today. By the sweaty jerseys, it was evident the players had put some work in scrimmaging. Guard Ray Allen said it was the most intense practice the team has had since before the playoffs. Forward Paul Pierce said he is confident the Celtics will win tomorrow's Game 5 because of the hard practice they had today. He said the key is tough defense. "At the start of the game, I probably need to be more aggressive in transition, but I think it starts with defense. We need to get more stops in order to start the transition break," he said. Yes, it all starts on the defense and the Celtics showed that in the regular season, as every time they lost a game by more than 10 points, the under went 3-0 in the following game. In the Game 3 they allowed the Cavs to shoot 53.6% FG and 52.6% 3pts and it's impossible to allow such numbers and at the same time win the game during the playoffs. During the regular season, Boston only allowed their opponents to shoot better than 50% FG 10 times. And a curious fact is that in the following game Boston has never allowed such thing to repeat, actually the average of Boston in the following game is to allow about 40% FG to their opponents. It will be via an improvement in the defense that Boston will try to win today, something the Cavs have been doing since Mike Brown is the coach of the team. In the 9 games Cleveland has already played in this season's playoffs. their opponents have scored less than 90 points in seven occasions. "If I had to boil it down to one word it would be, 'trust,' " Brown said yesterday at the team's new practice facility. "First, you have to trust in the defense you are playing. Then, you have to trust your teammates. Finally, you need to communicate and help. "It is never one guy guarding the basketball. It is five guys on a string and everyone has to help. Our team is playing good defense." When a reporter brought up the Cavs' defensive success, coach Mike Brown smiled and said: "I want to thank you for that. I agree. Our team is playing good defense. You hear a lot about 'We can't score and the Celtics defense is great,' which it is. But give our guys credit. They're doing a decent job on the defensive end of the floor. Cleveland took advantage in the Game 3 of the facilities Boston gave to their supporting players, as the Celtics were all focused on Lebron, who couldn't shoot better than 5-16 in that game. But the other players of the Cavs managed to shoot very well in that game. Wally shot 4-10 FG and scored 16 points, while West shot 7-11 FG and scored 21 points. To have an idea of the evolution of these two players, they had shot a combined of 12-40 FG in the games at Boston! As I said in the beginning of the write-up, this game is an excellent opportunity created by the Game 3, as the totals line jumped in this game to the 182 points, which in other circumstances would be almost impossible to happen, so today I expect a bounce back by Boston and that bounce back clearly passes for a better defensive performance. Take the under in here.