[Raji]

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Something strange happened to these Boston Celtics between the conclusion of their brilliant regular season and the start of their mediocre playoff performance.

Where is the team that went 31-10 straight up and 27-13 against the spread on the road this season?

Suddenly, they can’t buy a road win.

That situation has the mainstream media in a tizzy, but for bettors, it’s not the issue right now as the series heads back to Boston for Game 5.

Bettors are more concerned that the Celtics are 1-3 ATS in their current series with the Cleveland Cavaliers, adding to a head-to-head season series that now equals 6-2 ATS in favor of the Cavs.

Even more disconcerting for Boston bettors is the fact that they’re not really doing a bad job defensively against Cleveland. They’ve successfully kept LeBron James from taking over offensively for most of the series – which is no small feat and is usually more than enough to ensure victory against a team which is decidedly LeBron-centric.

“Up until Game 4 they did an excellent job of slowing down Lebron James and forcing his teammates to make their shots,” says Covers Expert David Chan. “More often than not that game plan is going to work against the Cavs.”

But maybe everybody’s looking at the wrong guy. While we’re all focusing on LeBron and wondering what happened to his game, maybe we should be examining Kevin Garnett instead.

Garnett was the driving force behind this team all year, but now he’s disappeared. He managed only two points in the second half of Game 4 and was – to everyone’s astonishment – outplayed and overwhelmed by Anderson Varejao of all people. The most telling moment of the game came when James planted a vicious dunk directly in the Big Ticket’s grille.

After being held down for the entire series, that's the kind of play that could rouse LeBron out of the uncharacteristic slump he's been suffering through. Not good news for the Celtics.

And considering Boston’s Big Three were all held to 15 points or fewer on Monday, the Cavaliers’ defense probably deserves more credit than its getting. Mike Brown used his bench effectively as Ben Wallace, Joe Smith and Varejao all did an excellent job sticking to the Celtics scorers and not allowing open looks at the basket.

Not surprisingly, all three of the Cavs’ ATS wins also played under the total. Parlay, perhaps?

But in spite of their struggles, Chan still believes the Celtics will be energized by their return to The Garden.

“As much as I would like to believe the Celtics are in trouble in Game 5, because I have the Cavs to win the series in six or seven and would love to hedge,” Chan concedes, “I think they'll take care of business. We'll likely be looking at another 8-9 point spread, which in my opinion, makes the game extremely difficult to bet.”

Either way, Game 5 in Boston poses an interesting proposition to bettors as the Celtics are pegged once again as heavy 8 1/2-point favorites. That hasn't been a problem in any previous games, but this one is a little more unsettling.

"We're looking at another 8-9 point spread," Chan says, "which in my opinion, makes the game extremely difficult to bet.

Raji