While most of the attention of sportsbooks patrons will be on college hoop this weekend, there’s still plenty of good NBA betting opportunities to take advantage of.  We’ll look at a Friday night game between the Indiana Pacers and Boston Celtics. The Celtics are in third place in the Eastern Conference biding their time for the playoffs to begin, while the Pacers are the worst team in the conference outside of the state of New Jersey.  The Celtics don’t have a great home record this year at 18-12 but the Pacers are a brutal 7-27 on the road.

BOSTON CELTICS VS. INDIANA PACERS:

From a pointspread standpoint, this is a matchup between teams we’d rather bet against.  Not only are the Pacers 7-27 SU away from home they’re 15-19 ATS.  And despite their SU success, the Boston Celtics’ pointspread record makes Bernie Maddoff and Lenny Dykstra look like good investments.  In 20 home games Boston is 7-22-1 against the spread.  And before you start getting excited about the fact that Boston lost outright in their last game, they’re 3-11 ATS off of an upset loss as a favorite.  As much as I’d love to go against the Celtics here, I have no confidence in the Pacers whatsoever.  Besides, I like the Celtics dancers.  More importantly, I’m not going to give out a questionable play and risk making you and I look like a couple of boobs.  A couple of really big boobs.

Instead, we’re going to take a look at the total.  For most of the season Charlotte and Boston have been #1 and #2 in scoring defense.  At the moment, the Bobcats are #1 allowing 93.8 PPG while the Celtics are #2 allowing 93.9 PPG.  Indiana has the #17 ranked scoring offense in the NBA and are actually ahead of the Celtics, who have the #18 scoring offense.  The Pacers are #29 in shooting percentage which is bad news for them since they’re a team that generates most of their offense from the outside.  With visions of the Celtics playing their usual tough defense and of Pacers’ shots clanging off the rim at the TD BankNorth Garden we’re going to play this one Under the total.  Boston has gone Under in 4 of their L5 games and 12 of their L17.  Head to head, these teams have gone Under in 4 of their L6 meetings and 3 of the last 4 in Beantown.  Total is high due to Indiana’s pitiful defense, but we look for the Celtics to control tempo and play their preferred halfcourt style.

PLAY BOSTON/INDIANA UNDER 201