NBA - 505 Miami Heat @ 506 Portland Trail Blazers
Projected Line: Miami by 6 points
The Heat is not looking good lately with several subpar performances and some tough losses. However they had a brutal schedule since the Christmas day game against the Thunder and a couple of overtime games didn’t help them physically either. Their last 2 losses against the Bulls and the Pacers were “unexpected” as the Heat was the favorite to win both games but it’s easy to understand why the Heat lost.
Both the Bulls and the Pacers offered a tough matchup to the Heat due to their size on the frontcourt and their physical defense.
Here some similar stats from the Bulls and the Pacers defense:
NBA Team Opponent Points in Paint per Game
#1 Indiana 35.1 ppg
#4 Chicago 37.6 ppg
…
#30 Portland 44.7 ppg
Rim defense FG%:
#3 Indiana 60.7%
#9 Chicago 62.6%
…
#12 Portland 63.9%
In those two games, the Heat shot just 8-12 FG and 8-16 FG at the rim when for the season they average 22.76 FGA’s at the rim! The Blazers are far from being a physical team especially on the frontcourt, where actually they have been shorthanded with just Aldridge and Hickson as viable options. Portland won’t be able to duplicate what the Bulls & Pacers did to prevent Miami to score easy points near the basket.
Portland has won their last 3 games but they didn’t impress me at all. They beat the Grizzlies who were playing Zach Randolph; they beat the shorthanded Wolves with an incredible 16-24 3pts shooting performance and last game they barely beat a struggling Orlando Magic team.
Portland in my opinion is a bit overrated and this is a bad matchup for them. A fired up Heat team will easily outplay the Blazers tonight.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 505 Miami Heat (-3) @ -110 / 1.91 on 5 Dimes
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