571 Celtics (-1.5) over Mavericks
I think it’s a great spot to back good teams coming off a humiliating loss like the Celtics just did on Saturday night blowing a 24 point 2nd half lead to the Pelicans. That loss lead to them being a sports media headline yesterday in a negative way and getting another national TV game I think we get a motivated Celtics team from start to finish going up against another weak defensive team in the Mavs. The Celtics rank above average in defensive rating and opponent eFG% compared to the Mavs who rank in the bottom 10 in defensive rating and opponent eFG%. Kemba Walker also struggled shooting the ball against the Pelicans going 5-21 from the field and 1-12 from 3 but he was up against a really good defender in Lonzo Ball and the Mavs don’t have a defender like that so I’m looking for Walker to have a bounce back game to help out Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
It looks like the Mavs are coming off an impressive win led by their defense holding the Grizzlies under 100 points and under 40% from the field but that was the Grizzlies 3rd game in 4 days plus they ranked in the bottom 10 for offensive rating anyway so I don’t put much stock in that effort. Even though Luka is performing at a high level again this year the rest of the Mavs have not been and Kristaps Porzingis is dealing with another injury that kept him out of their last game and he could possibly miss this one also. Even if he plays I still like the Celtics. The Mavs are also gonna be on the 2nd end of a back to back and they’ve been terrible in this situation going 1-4 SU and 0-5 ATS with a awful 122.6 defensive rating so a motivated Celtics team should have no issues taking advantage of this defense and over their last 10 games the Mavs are just 1-5 SU against teams that are .500 or better.
The Mavs are just 2-11 ATS in their last 13 games overall and the Celtics have owned this matchup recently going 6-2 ATS in the last 8 meetings and 11-4 ATS in the last 15 meetings in Dallas. I have the Celtics being 6 points better so I think there’s a lot of value backing the Celtics as small road favorites.