posted May 12, 2008 at 17:21 in NBA Articles
NBA Furious Free Picks – Can Cavs Keep Rolling At Home?
Boston Celtics (66-16) vs. Cleveland Cavaliers (45-37)
Monday, May 12th --- Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland --- 8:00pm EST
Series: Bos 2-1
NBA Betting Line: Cleveland -2 (182)
LeBron may be getting frustrated, but the rest of the Cavaliers are stepping up to alleviate some of that pain. Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak, Ben Wallace and Joe Smith finally played up to their trade value this past weekend in the Cavs 108-84 sports betting win. Not only did they decimate the spread, they proved that you can’t simply stop the Cavs by stopping LeBron.
I, for one, remain skeptical.
Where were these points before? Delonte West scored 21 points while Boston virtually left him wide open. That’s great and all, but all West did was tie his season best of 21 points, a total he put up against Washington in the first round of the playoffs. Where has this production been all season, when LeBron has needed help?
Joe Smith has been just as erratic, while Wallace’s “spectacular” output of 9 points and 9 rebounds was anything but jaw dropping. By the way, how mad do you think Kevin Garnett is at Wally? “HEY! WHERE THE HELL WAS THAT WHEN YOU WERE IN MINNESOTA?!” I can only imagine how infuriated KG got watching Wally drop 16 points.
Anyways, so Cleveland has more weapons than LeBron. We knew that. We always knew that. It’s just a matter of if those weapons will show up to the dance loaded and ready to fire. For the most part, that hasn’t been the case. LeBron has needed to be a one-man army, and if Cleveland’s online betting investors are banking on Game 3 repeating itself, they need to take a deep breath for a second.
All the betting trends point to Cleveland in this one. Boston is 0-5 SU in their last five road games against Cleveland, and 2-5 ATS in the last 7 roadies as well. Their history is not very strong against Cleveland on the road, and even when they effectively shut down LeBron on Saturday, he still scored 21 points.
However, I’m not willing to bet on the erratic scoring of Cleveland’s role-players. They just haven’t proven consistency on the level of Boston. Game 3 was a wash because no high seed has won Game 3 on the road in the East. Look for Boston to get their act together in Game 4 and blow the roof off of Quicken Loans Arena.
NBA Betting Free Pick: Boston +2 (UNDER)
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