The Brooklyn Nets will try to earn their first win of the season on Tuesday night when they visit the Boston Celtics for an Atlantic Division game. Tipoff at TD Garden is set for 7:30 p.m. ET.
Brooklyn enters at 0-3 and is coming off a 136-109 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Sunday. The Nets are 0-1 on the road this season. They finished fifth in the division last year with a 20-62 record.
Boston is 2-1 and has won both of its home games. The Celtics beat Chicago 134-99 on Monday. They won the Atlantic Division in 2025-26 with a 56-26 record.
The Celtics are an 11.5-point favorite in the latest odds, and the over/under is 222.5. Boston holds a 148-75 edge in the all-time series, including three wins in four meetings last season.
Brooklyn is led so far by forward Julius Randle, who is averaging 22 points, seven rebounds and 6.3 assists in 32.3 minutes over three games. For Boston, forward Jayson Tatum is averaging 24 points, 6.7 rebounds, eight assists and 1.3 steals in 34 minutes.
SportsLine's projection model, which simulates each game 10,000 times, leans toward the Over on the total. It projects 225 combined points and says the Over hits 54% of the time. The model's case rests partly on recent trends: the Over has hit in four of the last seven head-to-head meetings and in six of Brooklyn's last 10 games. It has also hit in three of Boston's last four.
SportsLine says the model has returned nearly $19,000 in profit for $100 players on its top-rated NBA picks since 2018. It also says the model is 26-10 on top-rated spread picks dating back to last season. The model says one side of the spread hits nearly 70% of the time, but the pick itself is available only through SportsLine.
For Brooklyn, the game is a chance to avoid a fourth straight loss to open the season against a division rival that has been dominant at home. Boston will try to build on its lopsided win over Chicago one night earlier.
