Charlotte @ Boston picks

There will be few games this season with lower stakes than the final two games between Boston and Charlotte. The Boston Celtics are locked into the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, while the Charlotte Hornets aren’t going to be able to further improve their draft lottery odds. Boston will want to stay healthy, while Charlotte just gets some run for young players against quality competition. Boston and Charlotte both rank in the bottom seven in pace, with the Celtics being the second-slowest team in the NBA. That means there won’t be many possessions, there won’t be much scoring (especially for the Hornets) on those possessions, and the starters on both sides aren’t going to be playing a huge number of minutes. Even with a low total set because of these factors, I’m still taking the Under.