Celtics vs Hornets Picks and Predictions: Charlotte Can't Run With League-Best C's

MLK Day is one of the most celebrated days on the NBA calendar, and it tips off with a matinee rematch between the Boston Celtics and the Charlotte Hornets, who did battle at the Spectrum Center just two days ago.

After a competitive first three quarters, the Celtics kicked things into high gear, easily outpacing the Hornets on the way to a 122-106 victory. 

Even though these teams are not in the same class, it’s hard to beat any team twice in a row on their own floor, and it will take a more focused 48-minute effort by Boston to finish the job Monday afternoon.

Our NBA picks and predictions for Celtics vs. Hornets believe the C's will come away with a dominant road win to begin the MLK Day NBA slate.

Celtics vs Hornets best odds

Celtics vs Hornets picks and predictions

The NBA is entering an age of unparalleled parity, where the competitive gaps between teams are smaller than ever before. But at the margins, you can still drive a car through some of those gaps, as it is with Monday afternoon’s matchup between the Boston Celtics and the Charlotte Hornets.

Following a disappointing Finals loss to the Warriors, the Celtics have been unambiguously the NBA’s best team this season. Even after something of a rough patch a month ago they’re 32-12 with the league's point differential at +7.4 and are given by far the best chance of winning the NBA title by FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR projection system. 

Boston’s unique talent is its balance. They’re the only team ranked Top 5 on both offense and defense, per Cleaning the Glass, and frankly, no other team is all that close. They started the season gangbusters on offense, cooled off a little, and as soon as Robert Williams III returned to action, they steadily developed into a defensive juggernaut.

In the path of that juggernaut this morning is the decidedly not competitive Hornets, who rank 15th in the Eastern Conference and whose 11 wins only narrowly lose out to the 10-33 Rockets for the worst record in the NBA. Charlotte is balanced too, in that they’re Bottom 5 on both sides of the ball. 

They’re utterly helpless to stop even modest offenses while unable to offer up much of their own despite the brilliance of LaMelo Ball. Incidentally, all the tanking teams (Detroit, San Antonio, Houston, and Charlotte) are Bottom 5 or nearly on both offense and defense. In an inversion of Anna Karenina, all good NBA teams are good in their own way, but every bad team is alike.

These two teams played each other in Charlotte on Saturday, and the Celtics easily covered despite only taking the game seriously for the duration of the fourth quarter. They’re just so far ahead in talent, attention to detail, shot-making, rim protection, and just about every meaningful predictor of NBA success. 

The lion's share of bets are pouring in at Celtics -8, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this line continue to move as they do. The Hornets have a strong argument for the league’s worst team while the Celtics have been the best. I’m hammering anything less than a double-digit spread between the two.

My best bet: Celtics -8 (-110 at bet365)

Celtics vs Hornets spread analysis

The Hornets' recent blowout win over the Milwaukee Bucks is probably the reason that Charlotte is getting this level of respect from oddsmakers, but there wasn’t anything about their approach that indicated they’ve turned some kind of corner.

They held the Bucks to 109 points that game, but that’s more an indicator of Milwaukee’s ineptitude than any defensive strides the Hornets have made. Getting boat raced by the equally offensively dubious Toronto Raptors in back-to-back contests should be evidence enough of this. Charlotte is just 2-6 against the spread in their last eight and 0-4 in their last four at home. 

The Celtics have covered against the Charlotte Hornets in eight of their last 10 head-to-head matchups. Even when they start slow as they did on Saturday, the Celtics only need to play well for a six-minute stretch to comfortably push the lead over Charlotte to double digits and beyond.

Celtics vs Hornets Over/Under analysis

The total of 231.5 seems like a hefty number, given Charlotte’s status as the league’s second-worst offense, but they proved on Saturday that just playing with pace and effort for three quarters is enough to at least hang around with Boston if the Celtics don’t bring their A-game.

Charlotte also shot an abysmal 29.6% from deep in that game, including an uncharacteristic 1-for-8 from LaMelo Ball. If just a few more of those shots fall then the Hornets could more than do their part to hit the Over.

And there’s good reason to believe that Boston will build on their 122-point performance from Saturday. The Celtics have a tendency to pour it on against the bad teams.

The Over is 11-2-2 in Celtics' last 15 games against teams with a winning percentage below .400, and that’s not because Boston’s defense suddenly goes slack. Once Jayson Tatum or Malcolm Brogdon find something that’s working, they just hit it over and over again until the other team can stop it.

Steve Clifford, as a general rule, doesn’t like his teams to double opponents. He’s old school and wants each man to hold their own ground, but there’s a reason elite players draw double teams even against the best defenses, as we saw with Tatum casually cruising to 33 points on 12-27 from the field in the previous contest. Unless this old dog learns a new trick, Tatum should be primed for a similarly productive night.

Still, this is a large total, and the Celtics frequently default to winning with their defense on the road if the threes aren’t falling. The Under is 12-4-1 in Celtics' last 17 road games.

Celtics vs Hornets betting trend to know

The Hornets are -04 ATS in their last four home games. Find more NBA betting trends for Celtics vs. Hornets.

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