NBA Betting – Miami Heats up in Time for Warriors Visit
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:39 am ESTPublished:
Golden State Warriors (-8.5, 241.5 o/u) at Miami Heat
Despite having Chris Bosh sidelined with a blood clot, the Miami Heat (32-24, 18-11 Home) have managed to go on a bit of a run, climbing to third in the Eastern Conference. The Heat haven’t lost since the All-Star break, a claim not even the mighty Golden State Warriors (50-5, 26-5 Away) can make. Miami will look to continue their run when they host the Warriors tonight at American Airlines Arena (7:30 PM Eastern).
With Dwyane Wade also missing two of the last three games, Miami has seen much better efforts from the likes of Hassan Whiteside, Luol Deng, and Goran Dragic in wins over Atlanta, Washington, and Indiana. They’ll all need to step up tonight against a Golden State team that doesn’t make a lot of mistakes.
“You have to play near-perfect,” Wade explained to the AP. “[A]nd they have to play very bad. They’ve got the best players at their positions to play in the perfect offensive system for them. It’s like open gym, but they’re well-coached, and they’ve got smart players and very good players.”
The Warriors became the fastest team to reach 50 wins in a season after beating the Atlanta Hawks, 102-92, last Monday. The Warriors actually surrendered a 23-point lead to the Hawks in the third quarter, but they didn’t panic and pulled away again in the final frame. Steph Curry had 36 points to lead the team.
“We’re staying in the moment,” Curry told the Associated Press. “It’s a special group, and we understand the potential we have, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Fifty wins is great, but we’ve got to keep plugging away and staying hungry, because no one wants to talk about that in June.”
Golden State’s last loss came at the hands of Portland and a super-human effort by Damian Lillard, who had 51 points on 64-percent shooting. It seems unlikely the Heat will able to duplicate that formula. Miami has a solid defense – second in the league at 96.5 points against per game – but struggle to score the ball, averaging just 96.8 per night (third-last in the NBA).
The Warriors are the number one team in the NBA in scoring, averaging 115 points per game and already beat Miami, 111-103, back on January 11.
Add that to a list of concerning trends for Miami, which is 1-4 ATS in its last five as a home underdog of 5.0-10.5 points.
Pick: Warriors (-8.5).
(Photo Credit: Keith Allison (Originally uploaded to Flickr)[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/].)
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.
