NBA Free Play 12/27: Boston Celtics @ Miami Heat

Boston  at Miami

NBA - 503 Boston Celtics @ 504 Miami Heat Projected line: 182 points In their first game of the season against Dallas, the offense of Miami showed all its quality by scoring 32, 30 and 35 points in the first three quarters of the game. All the work that head coach Erik Spoelstra in implementing some new tweaks on the offense worked perfectly. However, I believe Miami will have bigger problems today against the defense of Boston, problems that didn't exist when the faced the Mavs. In the Dallas/Miami game, I referred that Dallas besides having some out of form players, they would be missing the help defense that allowed them to beat Miami in last year's NBA finals. So, Miami attacked massively the rim during the game and scored 44 points in the paint, 31 points on fast breaks, while attempting 36 free throws! The obsession of Miami in attacking the rim was so evident that not a single starter of the Miami attempted one single 3pts shot!  Well, this kind of tactic won't work very well against the Celtics, as Boston since having their Big 3 have been one of the best help defense teams, something that is not a surprise considering they have Kevin Garnett on their roster, one of the best help defenders of all time! In their loss in the season debut against the Knicks, Boston didn't have problems in stopping the interior game of the Knicks, as they allowed 13-21 FG at the rim for just 62% and 3-10 FG from 3-9 feet. However, the damage was caused in the long range, with the Knicks shooting 8-16 FG from the 16-23 feet area and 9-20 from the 3pts line! Well, Miami with their new offensive approach clearly puts a lot of emphasis on the interior game and as we've seen, the Celtics have been an excellent defensive team near the basket over the years. So, we can expect Miami to struggle a bit in scoring points tonight. On the other side, Boston will be once again without Paul Pierce and in their last game against the Knicks, they were able to be competitive due to the terrible interior defense from the Knicks. However, this won't happen tonight against the Heat for two reasons: first of all, Miami was last year's best defensive team at the rim and so, Boston's 21-25 FG at the rim from their game against the Knicks are impossible to be repeated today and then, without Pierce, Miami will simply occupy the SF spot to make some traps to Rondo. We can expect Lebron helping Chalmers and Cole whenever necessary and the offensive game of Boston will suddenly have a lot of problems.  Therefore, considering the matchup, I have a projection of 182 points for this contest and so, I'll be taking the under in here. Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 503/504 Under 187 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker