Posted on 1/2/2008 4:18:42 PM

Bet on NBA - Houston Rockets (+ 12) vs. Boston Celtics (- 12)

By D.S. Williamson

The Rockets travel to Boston to the take on a Celtics team that is on a six game winning streak. That includes a nice 19 point drubbing they put onto the Los Angeles Lakers just this past Sunday.

Three days later and the Celtics have a good chance of doing the same thing to the visiting Rockets that they did to the Lakers.

Here are some basketball betting trends which point to that happening:

The Boston Celtics are 37-18-1 against the spread in their last 56 games.

The Boston Celtics are 11 and 4 against the spread in their last 15 home games.

The Houston Rockets are 8 and 10 against the spread in 18 away games so far this season.

Even though the trends are significant, there really is only one reason why the Boston Celtics will absolutely dominate the Houston Rockets in this match-up. Tracey McGrady is out of the Rockets’ line-up. He actually won’t be back until later this month.

With T-Mac on the shelf, the Rockets have nobody who can score with the Boston trio of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce. Pierce in particular has been sneaky good lately, both bullying his way into the paint and finding soft spots behind the 3-point line.

With Garnett and Allen both there to put even more offensive pressure on opposing teams, there is absolutely no reason why the Celtics can’t win this one by between 16 and 24 points.

Houston will no doubt try to force the ball into Yao Ming but that won’t be enough. To this day in his NBA career Yao has not shown the ability to dominate a game. I don’t expect him to do it tonight against the best team in the NBA.

This game is all about Celtic dominance.

The BetUS NBA betting line is Boston Celtics – 12 against the spread at home versus the Houston Rockets.

I like Boston to dominate on both the offensive and defensive ends of this game. Expect Garnett, Allen and Pierce to put up huge numbers in this game.

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