Just a game after beating the Phoenix Suns on the road and covering as 6.5 point favorites, the Boston Celtics are once again heavy favorites against a sub-par Portland team. Quite a few names have appeared on the injury report prior to this game for head coach Joe Mazzulla, including Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday and Jayson Tatum. I don’t think all 4 of them will sit this one out, but even if that does happen the Celtics are still well equipped with Jaylen Brown and the reserves to take care of business here if necessary. The Celtics are 12-2 SU in their last 14 games and 9-2 SU in their last 11 on the road. They’ve beaten Portland 6 times in the last 8 contests, covering the spread in 4 of the last 6 meetings.
Portland has been coasting through the regular season with not much going on for quite some time now. They’ve been stuck in the bottom 3 of the Western Conference for basically the entire season, so winning this game wouldn’t mean much for them. In fact, I would argue at this point of the season they’d be better off losing as many games as possible in order to get a higher chance of the number one pick in next season’s draft. They just beat the Toronto Raptors 128-118 in OT, which is impressive considering they were playing their 2nd game in two nights. With only one day to rest before taking on the best team in the NBA, it could be a struggle to keep this game close. Portland has just 1 victory in 10 home games.
