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NBA Basketball Friday: Chicago Bulls vs. Boston Celtics
Dec. 21
The Boston Celtics are the best team in the eastern conference, and could hang with anyone in the western conference. In fact, they are currently the favorites to walk away with the NBA championship at the end of the year. When you have Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen representing your team, it’s no wonder.
The Chicago Bulls on the other hand have started off to a slower then anticipated start. Much of it has been attributed to their 3-8 start on the road. At home the Celtics are undefeated, so it may be no shock to you think I am picking the Celtics to win this match up fairly easily. The Bulls have found some recent success the last few years, but nothing to come close to the excitement Michael Jordan brought the city. They seem to lack a leader, as one of their best players, Ben Gordon, is a former sixth man. Gordon does lead the team with just over 18 points a ball game, but he doesn’t have much to help him out.
Pierce leads the Celtics with 20.5 points a game, but unlike Gordon, he obviously has a slew of talent surrounding him. For that reason, and the reasons previously stated are why I am favoring Garnett, and his 10.7 rebounds a game in this contest.
NBA Basketball Friday: Los Angeles Clippers vs. Dallas Mavericks
Dec. 21
The Dallas Mavericks are off to a slower then predicted start, after finishing last year with the best record in the NBA. But, they were also ousted in the first round of those NBA playoffs by the Golden State Warriors. I am guessing they’d rather have a worse record in the regular season, but win an NBA title at the end of it. Truth is, last year they got off to a slow start as well. The Mavericks are still good at home, where they are 9-2, so if they can just find a way to turn it around on the road they will appear just fine.
At the time of this writing the Clippers are five games under .500. After spending years as the laughing stock of the NBA they have gotten gradually better the last few years, barely missing the playoffs a few times. They have pretty decent talent, a talent that would probably give them a better record in the east, but in the stacked western conference they are just another team fighting for one of the last playoff spots. At this rate they are competing more for a draft pick then a playoff spot, but they have been competitive in their games. Corey Maggette is finally getting his chance to be the first option in an offense, after years of playing second fiddle. He is averaging over 20 points a game. They also have a fairly decent “do it all” center in Chris Kaman. Kaman, who has drawn comparisons to Caveman, is averaging over 10 rebounds a game. I still predict the Mavericks will take this one in fairly easy fashion.
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