Andre Gomes Available Picks

May, 26 2008 8:30pm EST
ATS: Detroit Pistons -6 (-110)
WIN for +3.64 unit(s)

Boston Celtics at Detroit Pistons

Game 4 of this series with Boston leading by 2-1. It's curious to see that the momentum of this series quickly changed in just one game. If with the win of Detroit at Boston (the first home defeat of Boston in the post season) there were a lot of doubts that Boston would be capable of winning at Detroit, after a terrible 0-6 road record in the playoffs until that moment, the truth is that Boston won at Detroit by 94-80 and now they have the home court advantage back on their side. Today this game will be decisive for Detroit, as a possible defeat would put them trailing in the series by 1-3 and practically without any chance to reach the NBA final once again. This will be the scenario for this game. So, for me what interests me is to know what Detroit will do, what will be their reaction? Mind toughness is needed in this game situations. It's only necessary to look at the Spurs yesterday. They wasted a 20 points lead in the Game 1, lost by 30 points in the Game 2, but back at home they defeated the Lakers pretty easily. That's mind toughness. So, it's necessary to know that about Detroit. But I think very few people doubt that the Pistons have mind toughness. They are a team who has already won the title and they are used to win, in terms of numbers that prove this mind toughness, I can say that Detroit is 8-0 ATS in home games off an upset loss as a favorite this season and that since 2004, they are 8-2 in games following an home loss. About what they can do tonight, there aren't much doubts about that and it isn't hard to predict: their key players will need to step it up, because the poor performance of them was the main reason why they lost the Game 3 of this series. Detroit was down 32-50 at halftime and if we look to what their key players did, we quickly see that they were responsible for the 32 points scored in the first half, not wanting to remove any credit to Boston and their great defense. Billups in the first half had 0-1 FG 2-2 FT 1ast 1TO and 3 fouls and that isn't enough for a team leader. Rip Hamilton shot 2-9 FG in the first half and Prince 1-6 FG. With these numbers, it's impossible to win and the players are conscious of that and their effort tonight will be completely different. Billups said his biggest disappointment from Saturday was that "I just didn't really, personally, do a good job of leading, you know what I mean? That's not just shooting the ball and scoring the ball. When I can't do the things that I'm accustomed to doing offensively, there have to be other ways to have presence out there." The key for this defeat, just like in the other ones, was that Detroit found themselves trailing in the game pretty early and the Pistons are a team to control advantages, not to recover from early runs for their opponents. "It's about coming out early and setting the tone -- same-old, same-old," Hamilton said. "We didn't beat Philly when they came out 8-0 to start the game. We didn't beat Orlando when they came out 8-0 and we aren't going to beat Boston when they come out 11-0." Detroit just made 15 assists in the last game, which shows the weak ball movement they showed in the last game. The good fact of this is that Detroit is 10-2 ATS after a game with 15 or less assists this season, showing that the team can solve these problems. The team of Boston played a good game, they finally managed to win a road game in the playoffs and now they only depend again from winning their home games to get to the NBA final. So, it's normal that the commitment of their players won't be the same as from the players of Detroit. With these conditions, I expect Detroit to enter the court with a very strong attitude and with the game being solved way before of the last minutes of it. Detroit have already showed that when they are trailing at home, they are capable of recovering with huge blowouts at home. I remember that when they were down in 2004 against the Spurs by 0-2, they played well at home, winning those matches by 96-79 and 102-71. Today I expect something similar with Detroit winning this game pretty easily. Take Detroit in here.DOUBLE DIME PICK.