Wednesday 10-18-17 Free Plays / Trends / Betting Info / Etc

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Doc's Picks

NBA Boston -2.5

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Tony Finn

Milwaukee vs. Boston
Play: Milwaukee +3

The Milwaukee Bucks travel to the Garden for the home court 2017 season opener against the Boston Celtics. The TD Garden will be full for the scheduled 7:30 p.m. ET tip but there are now serious question marks about the Celtics ability to be who they were a season ago on a nightly basis especially in the second leg of a back-to-back.

The Celtics lost their prized free agent acquisition of the offseason. Gordon Hayward dislocated his left ankle and fractured his left tibia six minutes into last night's loss to the Cavaliers in Cleveland. The Celtics season-opening defeat and loss of Hayward present challenges to head coach Brad Stevens and his staff that is nearly impossible to plan for and nearly as difficult to manage. The coaches and players find themselves with a short bench and without their All-Star scoring wing for an undetermined amount of court time.

Despite the fact that tonight's is the Garden opener it is going to be a difficult task for this group to buy into this game being important. The fact is, however, that tonight's game, every game for that matter, matters in the end.

The opinion of this author is that the Celtics lost in the offseason by trading away Isaiah Thomas for Kyrie Irving. They have lost an additional share with Hayward being lost to injury. The argument that the loss isn't as large as I am writing it out to be simply isn't the case. While the team had not yet adjusted to having Hayward in the lineup isn't a silver lining. The roster result of losing the former Jazz All-Star is that the team now has to learn to play with more minutes from a rookie and a last year's Detroit Piston Marcus Morris, rather. And Morris isn't 100 percent due to right knee soreness.

The Bucks begin the season on the road which isn't a negative considering the situation with Boston playing last night and the youth of Milwaukee. Their best player and future stud is a 22-year-old in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Young teams, be it in the college or professional ranks, don't feel the same opening day/night pressure on the road as they do in front of their home town faithful.

The combination of Antetokounmpo (23 point per game), a healthy shooting guard in Khris Middleton and NBA Rookie of the Year Malcolm Brogdon is a difficult matchup for Celtics tonight under the conditions. The Bucks are without forward Jabari Parker to an ACL tear.

The Bucks were already in Boston on Tuesday night and as a group watched the Celtics and Cavaliers game from their hotel. The combination of the injury to Hayward, the second leg of a back-to-back while playing a talented and ready Jason Kidd squad is too much for Boston to overcome tonight.

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Bob Balfe

Dodgers -105

The Dodgers are playing flawless baseball right now. The Cubs have not hit the ball well all postseason and even last night could only get one run on eight hits. Teams go through peaks and valleys during seasons. It just so happens the Cubs are slumping right now and on top of that are going against the most complete team in baseball right now. Alex Wood has been fantastic all season and should lead his team into the World Series tonight.

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Bruce Marshall

Atlanta at Dallas
Pick: Dallas

Last year Atlanta was able to get the best of Dallas, but the Hawks' top three components in those pair of wins--Paul Millsap, Dwight Howard, and Tim Hardaway, Jr.--all departed in the offseason, leaving the erratic Dennis Schroder as the top threat. With Dirk Nowitzki giving it another go this season, still enough in the Dallas arsenal to get beyond this downgraded Atlanta bunch.

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Andre Gomes

Charlotte @ Detroit
Pick: Detroit -3

Charlotte will be without MKG tonight and that's a huge blow for a team which doesn't have a lot of quality options on its roster. Once again the Hornets' offense will rely on Kemba Walker, but Detroit is a nice defensive team which now has Avery Bradley to guard Kemba 1*1. The Hornets lack quality options on the bench and I don't see them being able to torch a fairly good Detroit defense in here.

On the other hand, Reggie Jackson had a fairly poor preseason, but unlike last season he will have competition for the PG position, as Ish Smith was amazing in the preseason. Detroit seems to have more offensive options than Charlotte with Bradley, Harris, Reggie/Ish and even Drummond had a good preseason where he shot 16-20 FT! If the Hornets lacked depth with its full roster, now without MKG and Batum, Charlotte's offense becomes exclusively dependent on Kemba. Given all of these factors, I expect Detroit to pick up a comfortable win tonight.