Who’s playing
Boston Celtics @ Los Angeles Lakers
Current records: Boston 31-13, Los Angeles 23-18
How to watch
What you need to know
After playing yesterday, the Boston Celtics will hit the road to take on the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday at 10 p.m. ET at Crypto.com Arena. The Lakers have home-court advantage, but the Celtics should win by five points.
On Wednesday, the Celtics needed a little extra time to put the Clippers away. They managed a 117-113 victory over Los Angeles. The win made it back-to-back wins for Boston.
Meanwhile, a well-balanced attack led the Lakers against the Wizards in every quarter en route to victory on Tuesday. Everything went in favor of the Lakers against the Wizards as the Lakers took a 111-88 victory. This 23-point margin constitutes a new team best for Los Angeles this season.
Anthony Davis was simply spectacular: he recorded a double-double with 29 points and 16 rebounds. He’s on a hot streak when it comes to rebounds, as he’s now lost ten or more in the last nine games he’s played. Another player who made the difference was LeBron James, who had a triple-double with 21 points, ten rebounds and 13 assists.
The Lakers worked as a unit and finished the game with 30 assists. They easily outscored their opponents in this department as the Wizards only posted 25.
Boston has been performing well recently as they have won three of their last four games, which has resulted in a nice improvement to their 31-13 record this season. As for Los Angeles, they improved their record to 23-18 with this victory, which was their third in a row at home.
The Celtics fell short against the Lakers in their previous matchup in February 2024, losing 114-105. Can the Celtics avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We’ll know soon enough.
Odds
Boston is 5-point favorite against Los Angeles, according to the latest NBA Odds.
The punters were perfectly in tune with the betting community on this point, as the game opened with a 5-point gap and stayed there.
The over/under is 219.5 points.
See NBA Pick for every game, including this one, from SportsLine’s advanced computer model. Get Picks Now.
History of the series
Boston has won 6 of its last 10 games against Los Angeles.
- February 1, 2024 – Los Angeles 114 vs. Boston 105
- December 25, 2023 – Boston 126 vs. Los Angeles 115
- January 28, 2023 – Boston 125 vs. Los Angeles 121
- December 13, 2022 – Boston 122 vs. Los Angeles 118
- December 7, 2021 – Los Angeles 117 vs. Boston 102
- November 19, 2021 – Boston 130 vs. Los Angeles 108
- April 15, 2021 – Boston 121 vs. Los Angeles 113
- January 30, 2021 – Los Angeles 96 vs. Boston 95
- February 23, 2020 – Los Angeles 114 vs. Boston 112
- January 20, 2020 – Boston 139 vs. Los Angeles 107
