NBA Betting – Oklahoma City Thunder at Miami Heat

Oklahoma City Thunder (-6.5, 199 o/u) at Miami Heat

Two teams in need of a win meet tonight when the Oklahoma City Thunder visit the Miami Heat at American Airlines Arena (7:30 p.m. Eastern).

After dealing with several injuries early in the season, the Thunder are finally getting back to where everybody expects them to be.  Right now, they are 20-20 on the season, with three wins over the last four games; a win tonight would put the tea. over .500 for the first time all year.

Oklahoma City beat the Orlando Magic, 127-99, in its last outing, and shot nearly 58% from the floor.

“We did shoot extremely well and we did play one of our best offensive games we’ve had all year. We were clicking on all cylinders this time,” coach Scott Brooks said following the first of five road games in nine nights. “We haven’t played well in our last three road games, but we came out with a road-trip mentality.”

The Miami Heat are 18-22 on the year and just 7-12 at home. In their first year without Lebron James, the Heat have the third-worst offense in the entire NBA. The Miami defense has been good, though, especially of late, holding opponents to an average of 88 points per game over the last four (three of which were wins).

“Our defense during the five-game stretch was much better,” coach Eric Spoelstra said. “We’re taking a step forward.”

Miami has won eight of the last ten games against Oklahoma City, covering the spread in all eight wins.  Five of the ten games went over the game total, with four unders and one push.  But they haven’t met since last season, and a lot has changed since then.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)