Two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference face off for the third time this season as the Celtics host the Bucks at TD Garden. The tip is on ESPN at 7:30 p.m. ET, I did a Same Game Parlay to spice things up a little.
Don’t forget to visit our NBA Pick page for spread and total picks for Wednesday’s games.
Now for my SGP bet!
MIL Bucks +8.5 (-106)
Damian Lillard will score more than 25 points (+120)
Giannis Antetokounmpo over 11.5 rebounds (-102)
Parlay same game odds: +511
MIL Bucks +8.5 (-106)
The Bucks have one head-to-head victory before, destroying the Celtics 135-102 in January. Even the first meeting of the season was close, ending in a 119-116 victory for Boston at TD Garden. The Bucks just scored 140 points on the Phoenix Suns this Sunday, connecting on 24 threes. It was their 9th victory in the last 12 matches played.
Take nothing away from the Celtics, they have been dominant during this 6 game winning streak, but they have faced teams like Detroit, Washington, Utah and Portland during this streak, so it has been a while since this team was not taken away. his limits. When you have a red-hot shooting team like the Bucks currently are, anything can happen. Boston has pretty much won the field throughout the playoffs, it wouldn’t surprise me if they loosen up a bit in the coming weeks. I’ll take the Bucks to cover here.
Damian Lillard will score more than 25 points (+120)
Even since his days in Portland, Lillard has never failed to show up against the Boston Celtics. Over the last 10 games, he has put up 27.8 points per game, his lowest point total during that stretch was 19 points in 2018. He has only managed to cross that line twice over the course of those 10 games and the last time he played at TD Garden, he finished with 27 points. Another encouraging stat in this game is his three-point shooting efficiency. Lillard is 41.1 percent from downtown in his last 10 games, which is a sizable increase from his norm of 34.4 percent in road games this season. The entire Bucks team lit things up from distance in Sunday’s win over Phoenix and Dame was no exception with her 4 threes. Scoring on Jrue Holiday and Derrick White will be a challenge, but Lillard is happy to take it on. I’m counting on a great performance from him here.
Giannis Antetokounmpo over 11.5 rebounds (-102)
Milwaukee won’t get far in this game if they don’t have a productive night from Giannis Antetokounmpo. As we saw on Sunday, it doesn’t have to be on the offensive end. The Bucks clearly have the ability to score big games, even when their best player isn’t playing well or at all. If Giannis focused solely on rebounding, he could easily lead the league in rebounds per game. He did so in both meetings with the Celtics earlier this season, averaging 12.5 rebounds per game. We also remember his excellent performances during the 2022 playoffs against the Celtics where he had a few games with 20 rebounds, his average over the last 10 games is 13.5 per game. If there’s a weakness in this Celtics defense, it’s the opponent’s offensive rebounds. Teams average 11.1 rebounds against them in that regard, so an energetic player like Giannis will surely benefit from facing an aging Al Horford or a fragile defender like Kristaps Porzingis.
