NBA 2022/23, on Thursday, 09.02.2023
The Boston Celtics welcome the Philadelphia 76ers tonight for a duel that promises to be exciting. Two absolute top teams will meet!
In my Celtics 76ers prediction, I trust the Sixers to pull off a surprising victory over the C’s, which I would not have thought possible just a few weeks ago…
Until recently, the Celtics were a team you could have blindly bet on to win almost every game, after all, everything seemed to be going like clockwork – and in places, that’s still the case.
For last Thursday, the C’s swept the Nets as they scored an unfathomable 41 points during the first 18 possessions of the game alone, hitting 8 of 8 from beyond the arc.
This was also their tenth straight win over Brooklyn, but just two days later in a 94-106 defeat to the Suns, things barely went right from the 3-point line and as a result Boston deservedly lost 94-106.
The Celtics’ performance fluctuations are huge right now. Every player within the rotation – with the exception of Robert Williams III, who didn’t play until mid-December – has seen his Effective-Field-Goal-Percentage decline in recent months.
Sam Hauser, Al Horford, Derrick White and Grant Williams have dropped the most in that category. All this is now much more noticeable in close games than at the beginning of the season, when every ball found its target.
In addition, the injury to Marcus Smart – who is now out for seven games – is also preventing Boston from playing at their best. So the Sixers are certainly not fighting a losing battle tonight.
The Celtics face a tough schedule in the coming weeks. The fact that they have a record of 7-1 in games against NBA teams that have won over 60% of their games speaks in Boston’s favour here for now.
But the last time the C’s faced a top team like the Sixers or Grizz was in Week 4. In addition, the aforementioned drop in performance certainly means that they are not currently as dominant as they were during the first half of the season.
However, Philadelphia has also declined in recent weeks, which can be clearly proven performance-wise by the game data, which can be accessed on the official NBA site.
The Sixers averaged 124.5 points per 100 possessions during their recent seven-game winning streak, but in their three subsequent matchups against Eastern Conference teams, they averaged just 102.6 per 100 possessions.
Still, I’m sticking my money on a win for the visitors tonight.
For one thing, their superstars James Harden and Joel Embiid are not injured for once. For another, they are in proven top form with nine wins from their last eleven games.
The last time they met, in October 2022, the C’s won 126-117, which gives you an idea of how evenly matched the pairing usually is.
Also, I’ll stress again that everything was still going swimmingly for Boston at this early stage of the season, and every rimshot went in rather than missed.
In view of the circumstances, I like the current situation on the betting markets very much, as it favours a by no means hopeless win bet on the Sixers.
After all, bettors are advertising higher 76ers win odds, currently trading at values of around 2.65.
Conclusion: The C’s have been unstoppable until recently, but the neatness with which they usually place their finishes has diminished greatly for almost all of the regulars.
In their current form, they are absolutely beatable by teams of the 76ers’ calibre – especially since Smart, an important element in the Green’s game structure, will continue to be absent.
The Sixers, meanwhile, travel to the East Coast with their best players and could put Boston in trouble right from the start, especially with their usual early pressure phase.
My Celtics 76ers tip: Philadelphia wins.
