THURSDAY JUNE 3, 2010 – Boston Celtics vs Los Angeles Lakers
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Team records:
Phoenix: 54-28 SU, 48-32-2 ATS
L.A.: 57-25 SU, 34-46-2 ATS
Much has changed since the night of June 17, 2008, when the Celtics made the Lakers their (rhymes with snitch) in a 131-92 Game 6 victory that cinched Boston’s 17th World Championship.
Matchup: CELTICS vs. LAKERS
Time: Thursday 9:00 ET
Venue: Staples Center, Los Angeles
Spread: Lakers -5.5
Over/Under: 192
The Lakers have shored up their front line now that Andrew Bynum is (semi) healthy, Ron Artest is on board to make sure Paul Pierce doesn’t go off in 5 or 6 games in the series, and Kobe Bryant has taken his game to Jordan-esque levels with a raft of regular-season buzzer-beating shots and shake-your-head playoff performances.
The Celtics’ starting five, which is 7-0 in playoff series since the Big Three was united with Elmer’s Glue in 2007-08, may be getting long in the tooth, but has received a sorely needed jolt of adrenaline with the emergence of point guard Rajon Rondo as an offensive/defensive force the likes of which the NBA may have not seen since the days of Fat Lever and Alvin Robertson.
The more things change the more they stay the same, and neither team is revealing much about how they plan to go about their business in Game 1.
The Lakers spent most of their Tuesday practice working on defensive schemes for Rondo, then got amnesia when asked about it.
Here’s what we do know: More than LA’s first three playoff opponents (Oklahoma City, Utah and Phoenix), the Celtics’ front line is best positioned to at least somewhat neutralize the Lakers’ massive bigs.
Kendrick Perkins (assuming he can avoid another technical which would trigger an automatic one-game suspension), Kevin Garnett, Rasheed Wallace and Baby Davis like to bang, and LA’s Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum are not particularly fond of being banged. 
We’ll see how that works out.
Bryant figures to get his points, and the 7-for-22 egg that he laid in Game 6 in Boston two years ago is no doubt carried around with him as much as his iPod is. Bynum was an injured scratch in 2008, and Gasol was last seen crying for his mother when the excrement started to hit the fan as the series wore on. LA has a lot of payback in mind.
Boston, meanwhile, is in the process of writing a new business plan for teams intent on reaching The Finals.
The Celtics sacrificed a half-dozen or more games (and home-court edge in two of their three Eastern Conference series) to rest players for the playoffs. If the series goes 7, we’ll see how that theory holds.
As the man who announced his plans to live forever is fond of saying, “So far, so good.”
Celtics vs. Lakers Game 1 Free NBA Prediction
The league didn’t do the Celtics any favors when it assigned the refs for this one. No-nonsense veteran Joe Crawford, who was in the crew for the controversial Game 5 in the Orlando series, will work tonight, and the other officials (Joe DeRosa and Derrick Stafford) have a record of favoring home teams. DeRosa is 39-30 for home teams ATS this season and Stafford is 39-34.
Combined, home teams are 129-88 straight up when one of the three in working the game. Crawford, though, is the wild card with Perkins just one tech away from a one-game suspension.
Liking LA -5.5 in this one on a smaller play, with a bigger play on the UNDER at 192 as teams spend the night figuring out what the defenses will give them.
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Lawrence Paul is a regular contributor to the Cappers Picks Blog, and is a free-lance gambling and travel expert from Massachusetts.
