NBA Betting – Dallas Mavericks at Miami Heat
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
Dallas Mavericks (-9, 190.5) at Miami Heat
The Dallas Mavericks (30-17) will try to put an end to their four-game losing streak tonight when they face the Miami Heat (20-25)Â at American Airlines Arena (8:00 p.m. Eastern).
The Mavs come in as massive nine-point road favorites thanks, in part, to their solid 16-8 road record this season. Miami’s weak 8-12 home mark also helped establish the double-take-worthy spread, as did an injury to point guard Dwyane Wade (hamstring), who is expected to miss two-to-three weeks.
The shorthanded Heat have a tough test ahead of them tonight, as Dallas brings the league’s third-best offense to town (107 points per game). The Mavs have not had to rely as heavily on Dirk Nowitzki this season, and are getting consistent scoring from multiple players; indeed, the Mavs leading scorer is guard Monte Ellis (20.5 PPG) and newcomer Chandler Parsons is also contributing nicely with 15.6 PPG.
On the other side of the court, the Heat are a disappointing five games under .500 on the year. One of the lone bright spots for Miami this season has been its defense, which allows just 96.4 PPG (second in the NBA). Their offense has been impotent all year, though, scoring 93.1 PPG (third-worst in the league). Lack of second-chance points have contributed to the Heat’s offensive woes; Miami’s 37.3 RPG is dead-last in the Association.
The Heat are coming off a seven point loss at home against the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday. Despite playing without Wade, the Heat managed to crack the 100-point mark for the first time in eight games. Uncharacteristically, it was the defense that let them down, surrendering 109 to the low-scoring Bucks.
“It’s just so disappointing and difficult not to be at full strength or at least 75 percent,” Heat forward Chris Bosh said. “And we don’t have room for injury.”
“We’re not feeling sorry for ourselves,” added Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. “Nobody’s feeling sorry for us.”
Spoelstra should have his squad ready to compete better on the defensive end of the floor tonight. While the Mavs are likely to escape Miami with a win, look for the Heat to keep it to single-digits against a more fatigued Dallas team.
(Photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
