The Celtics overcame a COVID depleted roster and a 20-point deficit Friday night only to see their efforts come up short against the Warriors. Not much rest for Boston as the Knicks come to town for a Saturday night tip at the “other” Garden. Both teams have their stars intact as Boston still has the 1-2 punch of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, as the Knicks counter with Julius Randle and his supporting cast. Dennis Schroder missed Friday’s game with a non-COVID illness and could sit Saturday, the Celtics did get Josh Richardson back despite losing Al Horford to COVID. With all of these moving parts there’s no better place than OddsShopper to find the best value and books to play anything on the game or player props. We’ll use the free tool – specifically the sorting tool – to find the best win percentages and match that with top ROI.
Check out Adam Strangis’ best NBA parlay picks for the Knicks vs. Celtics game, where he gives his favorite NBA player props and best bets for a BIG-TIME PAYOFF.
Best NBA Betting Picks & Props | Knicks vs. Celtics
New York Knicks vs. Boston Celtics
Date: Saturday, Dec. 18 2021
Time: 7:00 p.m. EST
Venue: T.D. Garden — Boston, MA
Coverage: NBAtv
Knicks vs. Celtics NBA Betting Picks + Odds Shopping
The easiest place to find the best bets in the NBA is on OddsShopper, the one-stop shop for value and where to place your wager. The best part is the tool is free and easy to use. Simply filter, sort the page and find the best return available across all books.
Knicks +5.5 (-110, BetMGM)
The Knicks should win this game outright after what Boston went through last night alone, but COVID is dealing a blow to both teams heading into this game. OddsShopper gives us the hook at one book for the 5.5 points on NY. New York will be without six guys – including RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley – which mitigates the confidence play in the Knicks. New York comes off a decent win over the Rockets but more importantly a short-handed Celtics team will be gassed against the Knicks. Boston will be without Schroder and has to find any scoring outside of Tatum and Brown. The difference in this game is rather simple, both teams are decimated by COVID, but it’s impacting Boston much higher on the depth chart.
Julius Randle Over 9.5 Rebounds (+106 FanDuel)
We have this as one of the highest xWin percentage props on the board for this game. OddsShopper is also giving us plus money on the return, so a decent xROI of 16% back. The 68% xWin chance is based off Awesemo’s 10 rebound projection for Randle, incorporating the matchup (with COVID) and his game history. The Celtics are down Horford and don’t have much in the form of the PF/C position to keep Randle off the boards. Granted he comes off two straight games of going under this number, one was in a runaway against the Rockets and the other game was against Draymond Green.
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Julius Randle Under 24.5 Points (-110 DraftKings)
This is one of our favorite bets on the board in the NBA tonight. Thanks to OddsShopper we have the benefit of three different pieces of data to help guide our bet – in this case it’s a fantastic marriage of numbers. Randle has an xWin 64% chance of going under his prop with an xROI of 22% AND Alex has Randle projected for 22.2 points against the Celtics. He’s been over the point total in only three of eight games and two of those times were at the start of the month. Even in his last game against Houston, Randle only had 21 in the win. He’s had one outlier in the past six games, but everything else has been mediocre from the floor.
Marcus Smart Under 12.5 Points (-109 BetRivers)
OddsShopper found great value in Smart regressing back after an offensive explosion – part of the reason we went 2-2 last night – against the Warriors. Don’t expect that again, at least OddsShopper doesn’t, and rightfully so. Awesemo has Smart projected for 11.3 points which may also be a little high. We still get nearly 1.5 points difference between the projection and the line. This bet is a combination of a couple of factors working together; Smart isn’t a consistent scorer, he’s coming off a back-to-back, and Jaylen Brown would take on more of the scoring void against the Knicks.
NY Knicks/O 208.5 ML/Total (+400 Draftkings)
Things are certainly volatile with COVID impacting everything in the NBA, so make sure you are constantly up to date with OddsShopper right up until tip. The Knicks are going to win this game but I don’t want to take any margin of victory chances, I also don’t want to lose value by gaining points I won’t need. I’d rather take the 4-to-1 return with the hopes that backups on the floor equate to higher scoring with worse defense. My bet here is that guys who are deep in the rotation are much more likely to be colder on defense than offense. Not everyone out there is going to knock down a ton of shots, but it’s easier to get to the hoop and free throw line if you drive against a weak defense. Take the Knicks to win this thing, but expect a higher scoring game as the defense will suffer.
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