Bucks vs. Celtics NBA Picks and Predictions

Two of the top favorites on the NBA odds board will meet this Wednesday when the Milwaukee Bucks open their 2020-21 campaign versus the Boston Celtics. 

Milwaukee Bucks vs. Boston Celtics

Wednesday, December 23, 2020 – 07:30 PM EST at TD Garden

It’s great to be making NBA picks again. Actually playing basketball during a pandemic, and traveling across the country to do it? Not so much. But if they’re going to play the games, we’re going to have NBA lines ready and waiting for us to exploit. Say, here’s one now: The Milwaukee Bucks are 3.5-point road favorites at Heritage Sports for Wednesday’s 2020-21 season opener against the Boston Celtics. Taking the underdogs in this situation would be about as old-school as it gets.

It would be new-school, too. We’ll be leaning on our usual sources for advanced stats and projections this year, starting with Nate Silver and his crew at FiveThirtyEight, who have Boston projected as 1.5-point favorites for this matchup. Ooooh, contrarian. And since this is a season-opener, we can also bring you Jeff Sagarin’s numbers; he has Milwaukee ahead by 0.24 points. It’s a slam-dunk bet on the Celtics either way.

The Giannis Chamber

That’s if you’re willing to put your trust in the projections. We haven’t seen either of these teams play for real yet, so there’s not much data to pump into the computers – and both these clubs look quite different compared to last year. The Celtics (48-24 SU, 41-27-4 ATS in 2019-20) no longer have Gordon Hayward at forward, and point guard Kemba Walker has yet to recover from the knee issues that plagued him in the Orlando bubble, so he’s out until January. The Bucks (56-17 SU, 39-34 ATS), meanwhile, have improved at the 1-spot with Jrue Holiday replacing Eric Bledsoe.

These changes have already made an impact on the NBA odds board. Bovada have the souped-up Bucks priced at +235 to win the Eastern Conference, tied with the Brooklyn Nets and well ahead of Boston (and the Miami Heat, and the Philadelphia 76ers) at +600. And Heritage Sports opened Milwaukee at –2.5 for Wednesday’s matchup before moving them to their current price. People love what the Bucks were able to do this offseason – people like Giannis Antetokounmpo, who signed a supermax extension to stay in Cream City. People like Hayward (now with Charlotte) were much less impressed with Boston’s game plan.

This is where all that contrarian goodness comes flowing in. Hayward (plus-2.7 Box Plus/Minus at Basketball Reference last year) will be missed, but that four-year, $120-million deal he got from Charlotte was ridiculous; Holiday (plus-1.8 BPM with New Orleans) is a better shooter than Bledsoe (plus-1.8 BPM), and may be a better fit with Antetokounmpo, but it’s a statistical wash on paper otherwise – and that trade also cost Milwaukee the services of reserve guard George Hill (plus-2.9 BPM), one of the most underrated players in the league. So yes, let’s start the new season off with a bang and take the home dogs for a small sum. It’s just the right thing to do.

My Pick: Celtics +3.5 (–108) at Heritage Sports (visit our Heritage Sports Review)

Celtics +3.5(-108)

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