Boston Celtics at San Antonio Spurs NBA Pick for January 27

The Knicks led for the entire first half last night in Utah, only to allow the Jazz to storm back and win by double digits last night. Unfortunately, you can’t win ’em all as a sports bettor. On to tonight, we’ve got a massive 12-game NBA slate to keep us busy.

One of the more interesting games on the night will take place in the Alamo City. The Boston Celtics are largely healthy for the very first time this season, and they’ll head down to Texas to face the Spurs. San Antonio had their game on Monday against the Pelicans postponed at the last minute due to the league’s health and safety protocols, but San Antonio is expected to have enough players to play tonight.

Boston enters this game at 10-6 on the year and winners of two straight. This will be the first game of the year in which all of Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Kemba Walker are on the floor together, so the fact that the Celtics have enjoyed such a solid start is certainly promising for their long-term prospects this season. The Spurs are 9-8 after a 20-point win over the Wizards over the weekend, which snapped a brief two-game losing skid.

The Celtics are four-point road favorites here in a game with an over/under of 223 points.

Healthy Celtics

Kemba Walker missed nearly the first month of the season after undergoing a procedure on his knee. Walker was reportedly dealing with knee soreness throughout the NBA bubble last summer, but he has said since the surgery that he feels like he’s back to 100 percent. Walker has played in three games so far this season, but he sat out on Monday to rest on the second night of the back-to-back.

The Celtics also got Tatum back on Monday after he missed a couple of weeks following a positive test. The fifth-year forward is making an MVP case for himself early in the campaign, averaging a career-high 26.6 points per game along with 6.8 rebounds and nearly four assists. Tatum has impressively knocked down better than 44 percent of his looks from long range after shooting over 40 percent from downtown last season.

“I was extremely happy with the way he came out and played,” Coach Stevens says of Jayson Tatum’s 24-point game in his return to action.

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) January 26, 2021

Boston is also getting a career year out of Brown. Brown leads the Celtics with better than 27 points per game so far this season while remarkably shooting nearly 53 percent from the field. The 6’6″ guard doesn’t do most of his damage in the paint, which makes that shooting percentage even more impressive. Brown is also shooting nearly 44 percent on his threes.

Boston didn’t generate a lot of preseason title buzz after losing Gordon Hayward in free agency, but the potential leaps of both Tatum and Brown do put the Celts in the Eastern Conference championship mix. Nobody has run away with the East as of yet. The Nets and Bucks are preemptive favorites to represent the conference in the NBA Finals, but don’t discount the Celtics just yet.

Young Spurs

The Spurs are a franchise known for their veteran savvy, but San Antonio has undergone a youth movement over the past couple of years. While LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan are still holding down the fort as elder statesmen, most of Gregg Popovich’s rotation is comprised of players aged 25 and under.

Dejounte Murray is probably the most promising prospect of the bunch. He already has an All-NBA nomination on his resume, and this season he has really taken a step forward on both ends of the court. Murray is averaging 14.6 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game while shooting nearly 45 percent from the floor. His three-point stroke (30.4 percent) could use some work, but he has already become an impressive two-way player at the age of 24.

Steve Kerr’s reaction to this Steph Curry turnover and the Dejounte Murray breakaway dunk is KILLING ME 🤣😂 pic.twitter.com/kRo5R54RiG

— Drew Shiller (@DrewShiller) January 21, 2021

Popovich is also leaning on the likes of Devin Vassell, Lonnie Walker, Keldon Johnson, and Jakob Poeltl to contribute on a nightly basis. The team’s performance has been predictably volatile to this point, though, especially on the defensive end. Young teams tend to struggle on defense, and these Spurs are no exception in that regard. San Antonio spent the first few weeks of the season near the bottom of the league in defensive efficiency, but they have since risen to 13th amid an improved string of performances in recent games. To compare, the Spurs finished 25th in the league in this category last season.

The Spurs are 10-7 so far this season against the spread, while the Celtics are 9-7 ATS.

What’s the Best Bet?

While we haven’t yet seen the Celtics at full strength this season, we know what this team is capable of. Boston looked like a legitimate championship threat before they fell at the hands of the red-hot Heat in last year’s Eastern Conference Finals. Losing Hayward won’t help, but I do think the impact of his departure is mitigated by the continued development of both Brown and Tatum.

I’m skeptical of the Celtics’ chances of beating a team like Brooklyn or Milwaukee in the playoffs, but this Spurs team is not a particularly daunting foe. San Antonio is pretty unlikely to make the Western Conference playoffs, and a finish around .500 for them wouldn’t be a huge surprise this season.

I like Boston to cover tonight. This game should be competitive, but I really don’t think the Spurs have the defensive wherewithal to deal with all of Boston’s offensive weaponry. Take the Celtics -4 in this one.