Cleveland Cavs at Boston Celtics Picks & Predictions
Written March 6, 2009 by Jay Horne
A epic battle for Eastern Conference supremacy will take place on Friday night from TD Banknorth Garden. The Cleveland Cavaliers own the best record in the East at 48-12, but they defending Champions the Boston Celtics are a close 2nd at 48-14. Boston defeated the Cavaliers in the season opener back in October 90-85, but Cleveland got some revenge in early January taking down the Celtics 98-83 behind a 38 point performance from Lebron James. Heading into Friday night’s match-up, Cleveland has been the red hot team winning 9 of their last 10 games including 4 straight. The Celtics on the other hand, have been uncharacteristically inconsistent in recent weeks. Either way this will be a highly anticipated game among two of the best teams in the NBA. The Celtics are 2 point favorites over the Cavs tonight.
The classic battle on Friday night will highlight the leagues two best defensive units. The Boston Celtics defense became apparent last season leading them to a Championship. However, Cleveland owns the best scoring defense in the league this season slightly ahead of the Celtics. The Cavaliers have held opposing teams to only 90 points per game on the season. Cleveland has also held teams to an NBA best 42.72% on the defensive side of the ball. The Celtics have yet to score over 90 points in both meetings against the Cavaliers this season and were held to a mere 83 points in the losing effort in January. Cleveland’s defense will be the key for the Cavaliers to score at extremely tough win in Boston.
The Celtics own the league’s 2nd best scoring defense which has only allowed 92 points per game this season. The Celtics barely trail Cleveland in the defensive field goal percentage category holding opponents to 42.78% from the floor. However, one of the biggest impact players on the defensive side of the ball will not be in action on Friday night. Kevin Garnett has been hampered with a knee injury for near two weeks now. Boston’s defense really hurts when Garnett is out considering he is likely the best defensive player in the NBA. Still, the Celtics will attempt to shut down King James and the Cavs this Friday night and score a huge home victory.
Cleveland comes in fresh off a 91-73 win over Milwaukee on Wednesday night. The Cavaliers actually shot rather poorly from the field only knocking down 41% of their shots on the night. Lebron James led the scoring effort with 23 points in the win. Mo Williams has really been playing well for the Cavalier over the last few weeks. In Williams 3 games in March, the point guard has averaged 22 points in those performances and is really becoming a reliable support. The Cavaliers will need some players to step up this Friday to put some points on the board to capture a victory inside the TD Northbank Garden.
The Celtics have plenty of talented stars in their studded lineup that can get hot on any given night making it hard to focus on one player. Paul Pierce leads the team in scoring averaging 20.3 points per game on the season. Pierce has scored at least 20 plus points in 7 of the last 8 outings as well picking up some slack from the absence of Kevin Garnett. Ray Allen is also having a solid season as usual posting 18.2 points per game on the season. Boston will look for Allen or Pierce to be the main weapon to have a big night against the strong Cleveland defense this Friday night.
Pick – Cavaliers appear to be the better team right now, take Cleveland +2
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