Miami Heat Eastern Conference Odds Now +1600 After Winning 10 of Last 11 Games

• The Miami Heat have quietly won nine of their last 10 games and risen to 4th in the East
• Jimmy Butler’s return has powered their surge, but his MVP odds are still extremely long
• Are folks sleeping on the team that reached the 2020 NBA Finals?

Pat Riley is smarter than people know. We all should have figured that out last season when he acquired Jae Crowder and Andre Iguodala at the trade deadline to add the final pieces to a team that made it to the NBA Finals.

Riley’s team is rolling again, winning 10 of their last 11 to move three games above .500 and into fourth place in the Eastern Conference. They have a favorable schedule the rest of this month, with their toughest opponents the visiting Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers next week. They also have three games against the Indiana Pacers between now and April, and their other games are against Cleveland, Memphis, Charlotte and Detroit.

After being hit hard by COVID issues, they are whole again. and a case can be made that everyone is sleeping on them, just as was the case a year ago despite their documented success against the Milwaukee Bucks, the team they eventually ousted 4-1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

2021 NBA Eastern Conference Odds

Odds taken from FanDuel Sportsbook on March 15th.

When Did Miami’s Turnaround Begin?

The Heat were 11-18 on the morning of Feb. 18 after a loss the previous night at Golden State, yet were priced at +1000 to win the East. (The books knew that Miami’s COVID issues were extreme).

But they beat the Kings that night, 118-110, as Butler had his third straight triple-double and Bam Adebayo also had a triple-double, becoming the first players in NBA history to have triple-doubles in the same game multiple times.

They beat the Lakers in Los Angeles by two points two nights later, double-teaming LeBron James after he stole an inbounds pass to give the Lakers a final shot. Alex Caruso missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer.

That seven-game road trip concluded with a win at Oklahoma City, and the Heat then returned home and had 8-point victories over the Raptors and Jazz and a 10-point win over Atlanta.

They lost to Atlanta two nights later as Butler sat out with right knee inflammation, but it has all been seashells and balloons (thanks, Al McGuire) since then as the ex-Marquette forward scored 29, 27, 28 and 29 in wins over the Pelicans, Magic, Bulls and Magic. In that last victory, Butler had a late steal that capped what was only the Heat’s fourth comeback win of the year after they trailed entering the fourth.

“He has a knack, that super-high IQ and that cat quickness that you can’t teach, and it surprises everybody,” Spoelstra said of Butler, who had five steals Sunday. During their 10-1 string, the Heat have held opponents below 100 points – which rarely happens in today’s NBA – seven times.

Conversely, they allowed at least 100 points in 21 of their first 28 games.

Stats Have Been Heating Up

Miami is 13-19 on over/unders, with only the hapless Houston Rockets (16 consecutive losses) having hit the over fewer times (11). The Heat have used 18 different starting lineups. But they are a system team, and their system is built around defense.

They are currently allowing 39.9 opponent points in the paint, the lowest in the NBA. Additionally, Miami is ranked second in opponent field goal percentage (.443), third in opponent field goals made per game (38.6), fourth in opponent fast break points (10.7), fifth in defensive rating (108.8), fifth in opponent points allowed (107.8), ninth in opponent second chance points (12.1) and 10th in opponent 3-point field goal percentage (.363).

The Miami Heat’s RAPTOR stats for this season.

Do whatever you want with this info… pic.twitter.com/KnxO0jM6ff

— sosa🌊 (@BiscayneBam) March 12, 2021

Will Miami Be the Team That Acquires Andre Drummond?

There’s an expression that “defense wins championships,” and defense was one of the key reasons why the Heat rolled through the Eastern Conference playoffs a year ago when pretty much nobody thought they would make the finals.

Yet they started by sweeping the Pacers, then beat the Bucks in five and the Celtics in six, getting contributions from all over the place (they had five different leading scorers in those three series) before showing their lack of maturity against the Lakers in the NBA Finals.

Andre Drummond’s been staying active. The Cavs big man has been working out in both Chicago & Miami this month.

Here he is in between workouts in Miami.

Heat, Celtics have had interest in a trade w/ Cavs.

Lakers have great interest if he’s bought out.

📸 – @lanezphoto pic.twitter.com/GqD5KKXUeZ

— 👑📍Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson (@ScoopB) March 14, 2021

If you are wondering whether you should bet the Heat to win the East this season, all we can say is that something very similar is happening this year.

And we still have the trade deadline coming March 27, and somebody will end up with Andre Drummond. He could be a difference-maker against undersized Brooklyn.

Does Butler Have a Shot at MVP?

Meanwhile, we have an MVP race that has changed due to the knee injury sustained by Joel Embiid on Friday night. He had been the consensus favorite, but he is now the third choice (+600) behind LeBron James of the Lakers (+150) and Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets (+230). James Harden at +1300 would seem to offer value, and it is a mystery why Steph Curry of the 20-19 Golden State Warriors is carrying the same exact price.

This veteran writer believes the race if more wide open than a lot of people would have you believe, and Butler – who has four triple-doubles – is probably one 10-game winning streak away from being a part of that discussion.

In regards to the MVP race, just remember that the books are super-exposed on Embiid and James because the national media has been so focused on those two. But we are barely past the midpoint of the season (Memphis has not even gotten there yet), and we still have more than two months until the playoffs. Be patient, and good luck.