Boston Celtics at Cleveland Cavaliers Betting Odds


Opening Betting Lines: Celtics +7.5 / Cavaliers -7.5 O/U 191.5

Time: 8 PM EST Saturday May 1 2010 on TNT

On Saturday night in the 1st game of an Eastern Conference semifinals series the Cleveland Cavaliers host the Boston Celtics. Both teams won their opening round series in 5 games and neither team had much trouble doing it. LeBron James has a minor elbow injury, but will not miss any time because of it. Still, any advantage the Celtics have will be welcomed by them.

The aging Celtics may have one more championship run in them, but they will have to get by King James and the new Cavs of Shaq and Antawn Jamison to do it.

This season the Cavaliers were 35-6 at home and 39-42-1 ATS and the Celtics were 26-15 on the road and 32-48-2 ATS.

Cleveland has won 12 of their last 13 post-season games at home.

Even though the Celtics and Cavs split the 4 games they played this season Cleveland is 14-8 against the Celtics since the 2004-2005 season.

James will score, but for the Celtics to win this game, as well as the series, they will have to keep the other Cleveland players, namely Jamison and Mo Williams, form having big scoring games.

Last season's playoffs showed that James cannot do it all and if his supporting cast can help him out, especially on offense, the Cavs will be very tough to beat.

Cleveland was a much better team on the boards this season with a rebounding differential of +4.0 rpg while the Celtics were only at -1.5 rpg. The Celtics big men of Kendrick Perkins and Kevin Garnett will have to hit the boards hard and not allow the Cavs to control the glass.

Perkins was solid on the glass in the Miami series, but only averaged 5.8 ppg and led the Celtics in turnovers with 16. He will have to keep Shaq from camping out in the lane and he has to give the Celtics some offense.

Ray Allen was the MVP on the Miami series averaging almost 20 ppg and he shot over 52% from the field AND from beyond the 3-point arc hitting on 19 of his 36 long bombs. He will have to shoot well in this game to pull off the upset.

Betting Trends

Boston was 4-1 ATS in their 1st round series against the Heat and for the series had an Over record of 3-2.

Cleveland was 2-3 ATS in their 1st round series against the Bulls and for the series had an Over record of 3-2.

Our Selection : Check back later for our point spread selection for this game.


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Dallas Mavericks at Miami Heat Odds 6-12
The Mavs are up 3-2 in this series heading to South Beach and for the Heat to force Game 7 they will have to play better in the 4th quarter, especially LeBron James. 5Dimes has the hometown Heat as 5-point favorites in Game 6 with a total of 187.

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