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 It is now NBA Finals Game 5 and Boston leads the series 3-1. In Game 4 Boston came back from 24 points down in LA To win the game 97-91. '' don't want to get overjoyed,' Paul Pierce said. "I want to go out there to try and win Game 5 on Father's Day and then I'll be able to breathe. Right now, I'm waiting to exhale." "Once we got the lead, obviously, we were thrilled to death," Rivers said. "As far as we were down, nothing was going right for us, and we just hung in there. Credit the Celtics for raising their intensity on defense and hitting shots while the Lakers lost focus, stopped being aggressive and just hoped for Kobe to win it against the best defense in the league. That made it tougher because then the Celtics just doubled and tripled Kobe while the other Lakers checked out mentally. That's basically the story of Game 4. The oddsmakers at Sportsbook.com set the NBA Finals betting odds for the LA Lakers -7 to Boston for your NBA Finals picks on Game 5.
The Lakers are now 1-5 against Boston this year in the NBA playoffs and regular season, and they could have easily lost Game 3 of this series as Boston had the lead in the 4th. Which ever NBA Finals picks you make the Lakers and Celtics are pretty evenly matched. All four games have been close at the end. However, the Boston bigs have controlled the Laker bigs. This is in part because Gasol is really a power forward rather than a center and is playing out of position. It's important to note that Boston is only up 3-1, LA was within striking distance at the end of two of those losses, and Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo will not be 100%. Boston's coach Rivers said Friday that Perkins has a 50-50 chance "at best" of playing in Game 5 on Sunday night. "When I first saw it, I didn't like what I saw," Rivers said. "Obviously the injury he had last night could be significant, and we don't know the results yet. But that's clearly not looking great right now." The Celtics are a terrific defensive team and Kevin Garnett is an amazing defensive player. At some point we all need to step back and remember how awesome KG is. The 24th Finals game of Kobe Bryant's career had the Celtics trailing by 20 points halfway through the third quarter, unable until 4:07 remained in the game to snatch their first lead and then showing their steel from there by refusing to give it back ... all while Bryant could finish with only a 17 points on 6-for-19 shooting. Nice to see Kobe walk off the floor with 3 seconds left. Classless, although I guess for someone who cheats on his wife, is accused of rape, trashes his teammates behind their back and whines on the court like Lindsay Lohan when the bar closes, just another chapter to his sad story. Talented player no doubt...but a real loser as a person. I wonder what the Patriots are thinking now. They blew a chance at a clean Boston sweep (Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots). And THEY looked like the best team of all of them. Trends For This NBA Finals Picks Matchup- Under is 7-1 in BOS last 8 games as an underdog. Under is 8-1 in LAL last 9 overall. LAL are 2-6 ATS in their last 8 games as a favorite. View NBA Finals picks and betting Odds at OnlineSportsHandicapping.com before you bet on NBA Finals Basketball at Sportsbook.com
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