Andre Gomes Available Picks

May, 30 2008 8:30pm EST
ATS: Detroit Pistons -5 (-110)
LOSS for -3 unit(s)

Boston Celtics at Detroit Pistons

Game 6 of this series with the Western champion already known: the Lakers. I have to show my frustration how the Game 5 of this series went, as if you remember I took Boston -6 and Boston won, but didn't cover the spread. The positive fact is that I was able to predict exactly what was going to happen in the game, just remember what I said:

"The bounce back of Boston tonight won't be via their offense... it will be around the attitude of the team and the level of aggressiveness they will show today. And it's here that the Celtics will have the edge over Detroit, especially as Boston has outrebounded Detroit in all games this season, with 54-36 "
The fact was that Boston outrebounded the Pistons by 42-25!

"On the other side, in the two wins of Detroit, the team was capable of having an excellent ball movement (27-7 and 21-9 ast/to) and this will also be affected by the aggressiveness of Boston"

Detroit committed 15 turnovers!

"This aggressiveness that I am talking about in my write-up is visible in the points in the paint which both teams have been scoring during the series. When Boston won, they outscored Detroit by a combined of 78-46, but in the two wins of Detroit, the difference is quite obvious, as Boston just outscored Detroit by a combined of 60-48."

Boston outscored Detroit in the paint by 36-18! The double!

And for last I ended the write-up with the way I'll approach this game: "I believe this series may need 7 games before we know who will win the East this season"

Detroit has the momentum of the previous game of the series, as they managed to recover from an huge advantage of Boston and they took it to a ball game. The most important fact in terms of the team is that in the six conference finals, even though they just reached the NBA final twice, they never lost the last game of the series at home, which shows the team's mentality. One of the problems of the team and which helped Boston to get a big lead is that Detroit had some key player in foul trouble and the main one was McDyess, who after a monster game in the Game 4, just made 4 points and 5 boards. All because of the fact he was involved in foul trouble pretty early in the game. He committed his 4th foul with 9:14 to go in the 3rd quarter and actually the team was punished by the fouls (30-21) and this was a huge problem to the team during the whole game. The key factor of the previous game of the series was the poor man-to-man defense of Detroit. As is often the case, Chauncey Billups was routinely beaten off the dribble by his man -- in this case, Boston's Rajon Rondo. Wallace and Antonio McDyess had to leave the men they were guarding to help on Rondo and no defense can recover from that kind of breakdown. McDyess got in foul trouble, and Perkins often was left open to grab rebounds or take passes from Rondo for easy baskets. This will be changed for sure and the confidence for this game is huge.

Richard Hamilton is questionable for today, but I believe he will play, as this game is the most important game of the season for Detroit until now. Detroit after losing a game in the playoffs are 5-0 ATS until now and I believe Boston will need to play a 7th game for the third time in a row this season. Take Detroit in here.