NBA Playoff Betting – (1) Hawks at (5) Wizards (Game 4)

Atlanta Hawks (-4.5, 199 o/u) at Washington Wizards

For the Washington Wizards (46-36, 29-12 Home), it didn’t matter that star point guard John Wall missed Game 3; the presence of veteran play-maker Paul Pierce was enough to lead the team to a 103-101 win.  Leading 2-1, the Wizards will host the Atlanta Hawks (60-22, 25-16 Away) this Monday in the Eastern Conference semifinals Game 4 at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC (7:00 PM Eastern Time).

The win in Game 3 came off a long buzzer-beater by Pierce; the veteran had 13 points, while Nene, Bradley Beal, and Otto Porter Jr. each added 17, making up for the absence of Wall, who is dealing with a fractured left hand and is unlikely to return this postseason. The Wizards covered the spread as a four-point home underdog.

“We feel like it’s only us in the locker room who is going to give us a chance [without Wall],” said Pierce. “We feel like we should have won Game 2, truthfully. But even with John out, we still feel like we have enough in that room to win a game, to win this series. It’s not going to deter us from our goals.”

During the postseason, the Hawks haven’t showed the style of play that allowed them to win 60 games and nab the best record in the Eastern Conference. Atlanta’s defense hasn’t been able to get stops consistently to get in transition, and they’ve missed Thabo Sefolosha, who suffered a mysterious ankle fracture right before the playoffs started while being arrested by the NYPD.

The Atlanta reserves did their best to bring the Hawks back in Game 3, though, mounting a furious fourth-quarter comeback that fell just short.

“The way that the group that finished played, we’re going to have to play more like that for 48 minutes,” said coach Mike Budenholzer after his team rallied from a 21-point deficit, only to see Pierce win it at the horn.

In the trends, Washington is 5-1 SU in its last six games at home against Atlanta and six of the last seven between the franchises have gone over the game total.

Pick: Wizards +4.5.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison (Flickr: Bradley Beal, John Wall) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)