Celtics Favored To Sweep Home-And-Home With Nets

Kyrie Irving’s new teammates in Brooklyn just lost on the road to his old teammates in Boston, courtesy of a big night from Kemba Walker, his Celtics replacement. With the scene now shifting to Brooklyn, Irving will be forced to watch from the sidelines again, so can bettors expect a different outcome — Boston covering — from Wednesday’s game?

Sportsbook Odds Analysis

The Celtics opened as slight road favorites, in part to their strong SU and ATS play this season, as well as Brooklyn continuing to be without star Kyrie Irving. As both teams have played to the UNDER a lot recently, and their matchups have been low-scoring lately too, the total opened very low at 217 points.

Boston News & Notes

The Celtics opened a home-and-home set with Brooklyn on Wednesday in Boston, hoping to show former player Kyrie Irving exactly how much they didn’t miss him leaving the club. While they didn’t get to exact revenge on Irving personally, as he did not play, the Celtics did handle their business with a 121-110 win.

Leading the way was the guy Boston signed to replace Irving, point guard Kemba Walker, who had a game-high 39 points on 13-of-24 shooting. Making his first appearance in five days following a neck sprain, Walker has picked up where he left off as the Celtics’ leading scorer with 22.2 points per game.

He’ll get a chance to further shine in front of an absent Irving on Friday, as Brooklyn allows the second-most points per game to point guards in the NBA.

Brooklyn News & Notes

The Nets had been playing good basketball without Kyrie Irving, going 4-1 over their most recent five-game stretch without him, until they fell to the Celtics in Boston on Wednesday.

Brooklyn came out firing; scoring 40 points in the second quarter, taking a halftime lead and going 15-of-28 from three in the second and third quarters. But the Nets went cold at the end of the game, allowing a 9-0 run late in the third quarter and then a 17-7 run in the fourth that ended the game.

Despite their strong three-point shooting, Brooklyn was equally as bad in free throws, shooting just 47.4 percent (9/19) as a team. The Nets are currently the seventh-worst free-throw shooting team in the league, and if they want to get back to winning they cannot afford to give away so many easy points — especially without their leading scorer. 

Betting Pick: Celtics -4.5

Brooklyn will want to avoid getting swept in this home-and-home, but Kyrie’s old team really wants to make Kyrie’s new team look bad. I’ll stay with Boston to cover.