Houston Rockets -4.5 vs Boston Celtics
On the season, the Houston Rockets and Boston Celtics are even teams by the numbers, both +7 by Cleaning the Glass net rating. But let’s look at the conferences: the average CTG net rating of the East is -0.37, while the average of the West is +0.45. That’s nearly a full-point difference. (Don’t ask me why it’s not inverse/symmetrical — it feels like it should be, right?)
All else being equal, I still have the Rockets significantly better, and there are a lot of factors stacking up for Houston.
Nikola Vucevic is expected to be out tonight, per Armin Khansari of The Dream Shake.
The Celtics are also on the second night of a road back-to-back.
Boston traded for a help-now player in Vucevic, cementing their frontcourt rotation with a reliable top-100 veteran. They got him for exactly this type of matchup, to deal with the Rockets’ still-formidable frontcourt — even without Steven Adams.
I get some of the downgrade in their futures odds with Adams out, but let’s be honest: he played 14 minutes vs. Boston in their matchup when Houston won by 27. Adams wasn’t some night-by-night annihilator, nor the most problematic big for the Celtics to contend with.
Yes, the Rockets made 16 threes in that game — but they also outrebounded Boston by 17.
If we adjudged removing Anfernee Simons from the Celtics as worth a half-point, and the apparent match-up advantage as worth a half-point, considering I have the Rockets already 1.5 points better than the Celtics — and we give the Celtics the standard -2 for a road back-to-back — that’s a 4.5-point advantage, meaning given the Rockets’ home court this line should be -6.5. That’s the right amount of value to fire.
🎯 PLAY: Rockets -4.5