Chicago at Boston

The Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls split four games in the regular season, but the Celtics won both games at the Garden, and limited the Bulls offense to just an average of 90 points per game. The Celtics came out in the two games at the Garden with a defensive mindset, and held the Bulls to a woeful 39 ppg in the first half of those games. With a playoff mindset and a team in the Bulls that knows they can't allow Boston to turn this game into a track meet, the stage is set for some defensive NBA playoff style minutes in the first half of this contest. Also, this spread is too low for this game between a #1 and #8 seed. Chicago has realky struggled recently on the road vs. good passing teams like Boston. The Bulls are just 8-19 ATS the past two seasons on the road vs. teamst hat average over 22 assists per game. Over that same span, Chicago is 37-54 ATS when the total is set in this range (200 to 210). Take the first-half UNDER and the Celtics to cover.