NBA - 545 Miami Heat @ 546 Indiana Pacers
Projected line: PK Line | 178 Points
Miami crushed the Pacers in Game 5 and even Pacer’s president Larry Bird called them out saying that they were soft. I expect the Pacers to make some adjustments for tonight and deliver a huge effort.
Rebounding has been the key in this series:
Game 1: Miami 56.2%
Game 2: Indiana 54.0%
Game 3: Indiana 57.8%
Game 4: Miami 56.2%
Game 5: Miami 50.3%
The team that is winning the boards battle is also winning the game and for tonight I expect the Pacers to be focused in this particular department. Haslem and Pittman are out for tonight due to suspension and so the Heat will have to play LeBron James some PF position and/or giving Juan Howard some minutes. Either way, the Pacers have now more conditions to win the rebounding department.
In game 5, Miami scored 22 fast break points vs. just 2 from the Pacers. After shooting 5-11FG; 2-9FG; 5-13FG and 7-12FG in transition, the Heat went 10-14 FG in the last game! Indiana did a poor job in stopping one of the strongest links of the Heat offense and once again I expect the Pacers to do a better job in here. Fouling early is an option and I wouldn’t be surprised if some hard fouls happens again.
Wade and James together have been spectacular in the last 6 quarters of this series and in the last game aside of transition points, these two players did the majority of the damage in the Pick n roll! Miami ran 31.9% of their offensive sets in Pick n Rolls ball handler plays while shooting 9-19 FG, they even went 5-5 FG in roll man plays! The problem is that without Haslem, Miami basically doesn’t have any pick n pop threats in the game so the Pacers will edge hard(er) the ball handler, making tougher for James and Wade to score after the screen.
I expect a regression in these three factors for Miami tonight…
On the other end, the Pacers are having some problems to score against Miami. Coach Vogel really didn’t make an effort to involve Roy Hibbert on offense in the last game and this will change tonight. The Pacers shot 21-43 FG at the rim L2 games – just 48.8%! With the Pacers having the edge on the glass I expect them to be more assertive at the rim.
This contest will be a low scoring game in my opinion while the Pacers will be extremely competitive. Not coincidently, the two games that the Pacers defeated the Heat, the game went Under the total posted.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 546 Indiana Pacers (+3) @ -110 / 1.91 on BookmakerPick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 545/546 Under 182.5 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
No comments:
Post a Comment