NBA - 703 Dallas Mavericks @ 704 Miami Heat
Projected line: 185 points
Miami is 0-2 on their last two games where they showed little energy and with their defense completely disappearing, with defensive rates of 117 and 115! At the same time, the bad rebounding from them was a factor as well, as it was odd as well to see Oklahoma City shooting 20-29 FG at the rim and then Indiana also shooting 14-19 FG against them in the same area, when the Heat are one of the best rim defenses in the league. I blame the lack of energy for these poor defensive performances. They also lacked any kind of transition defense, with Indiana shooting 8-16 FG and Oklahoma City 7-12 FG in transitions. Offensively, they weren't aggressive and they shot poorly from the outside. However, for today's game, they had two days off to rest and with a bounce back + revenge from last year's finals mindset, I expect Miami's rim defense to be top notch once again.
On the other hand, Dallas is coming from two good performances against Houston where they had success on the inside with 14-17 FG and 16-22 FG at the rim, but that was against the poor interior defense of the Rockets. For today, Dallas will be forced to be an outside shooting team. Considering the fact that Miami is struggling from the outside with 35% FG from 16-23 feet and 27% FG from 3pts in their last 5 games, I expect Dallas to use some zone defense and close the paint as well. With Marion, Dallas' defense has improved in comparison to the previous games where he didn't play due to injury and I expect him to be able to defend Lebron tonight. I believe neither team will have a great offensive game tonight and so, I came up with a totals projection of 185 points, low enough for me to take the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 703/704 Under 189 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
No comments:
Post a Comment