The Atlanta Hawks and the Boston Celtics duke it out in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals at the TD Garden on Tuesday night.
The Atlanta Hawks came into the playoffs with plenty of confidence after taking down the Heat in the play-in game, but they will be going back to the drawing board after getting routed by the Celtics in a 112-99 road loss in Game 1 on Saturday. Dejounte Murray led the team with 24 points, eight rebounds and six assists, Trae Young added 16 points with eight assists while John Collins and Clint Capela scored 12 points each. As a team, the Hawks shot just 38 percent from the field and five of 29 from the 3-point line as they struggled to match the intensity of the Celtics from the start and they were never in the contest after falling behind by 30 points going into halftime. The Hawks' starting backcourt had a rough night from the perimeter as Young and Murray combined to shoot just one of 11 from the 3-point line and they got next to nothing from their reserves as no bench player finished in double figures in scoring.
Meanwhile, the Boston Celtics will be gunning for that 2-0 series lead after making light work of the Hawks in the series opener on Saturday. Jaylen Brown led the team with 29 points, 12 rebounds and three assists, Jayson Tatum added 25 points with 11 rebounds while Derrick White chipped in with 24 points and seven assists. As a team, the Celtics shot 47 percent from the field and 13 of 33 from the 3-point line as they set the tone defensively by holding the Hawks to just 19 points in the first quarter, before they exploded for 45 points in the second quarter to push the lead out to an unassailable 32 points.
Looking at the betting trends, the Hawks are 4-9 ATS in their last 13 road games, 0-6 ATS in their last six games against a team with a winning record and 2-7 ATS in their last nine games overall. The Celtics are 4-0 ATS in their last four home games, 20-8-1 ATS in their last 29 Conference Quarterfinals games and 5-0 ATS in their last five games overall.
Head to head, the under is 6-2 in the last eight meetings overall, the Hawks are 0-5 ATS in the last five meetings in Boston and the Hawks are 0-6 ATS in the last six meetings overall.
The Hawks only need to win one of these two road games to gain home-court advantage, but they need to get off to a much better start than they did in Game 1 or they'll suffer another loss. The Celtics simply dominated the first half and probably should have won by even more if they didn't take their foot off the gas. The line has been set at double-digits once again, but the Celtics made the series opener look like a complete mismatch and I think they'll win easily again.
The pick in this article is the opinion of the writer, not a PickDawgz site consensus.
AUTHOR: Peter Tran

Peter is busy writing amazing articles for PickDawgz but will create a bio soon.