The Boston Celtics sit six games back of the Cleveland Cavaliers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference with 12 games left to play. That means they can ill-afford to lose many more games if they want a chance of leapfrogging Cleveland before the end of the regular season.
They’ve won three-three straightstraight games and are in a great spot to win a fourth tonight when they take on one of the worst teams the NBA has to offer, the Utah Jazz.
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The Jazz are the most blocked team in the NBA. Teams are averaging 6.4 blocks against them per game, 0.5 more than the next worst team. To try to take advantage of that, I’m going to back the Celtics’ top blocker, Porzingis to reach at least two blocks tonight. He’s averaging 1.6 blocks per game this season.
In the latest edition of “Best NBA Bets Today“, I broke down why I like the Jazz to cover this big spread:
It may seem crazy to back the Jazz to cover against the Celtics, but I think Utah has enough working on its favor to take the 14 points with the home team. No team in the NBA shoots the three ball more than the Celtics and one of the only bright spots for the Jazz has been their perimeter defense. Utah ranks 12th in opponent three-point field goal percentage, keeping teams to shooting 35.6% from beyond the arc. That number has improved to 30.1% over their last three games.
Utah’s biggest weakness is turnovers, ranking dead last in turnovers per game at 16.8. Now, they face a Celtics team that isn’t known for forcing turnovers. In fact, they rank 25th in opponent turnovers per game at just 13.0.
Those two factors are enough to lead me to believe Jazz can at least cover the spread on their home court tonight.
Pick: Utah +14.5 (-110) via BetMGM
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