NBA - 803 Los Angeles Lakers @ 804 Miami Heat
Projected Line: Miami by 12 points
The Lakers will be playing their final game of a 7-games road trip today. They started the road trip with some promising games, but with Pau Gasol getting injured and especially with a whole new saga involving Dwight Howard, their chemistry is once again gone. I watched their last two games and Howard is clearly not 100% healthy and this isn't news for anybody, but he seems worse and it also seems that he isn't currently totally focused on the team right now.
Matchup wise, Miami's offense is simply the worst possible matchup for the Lakers's defense! We all know about Lakers's problems in defending transition plays and guarding the dribble penetrations from their opponents. It's only necessary to see that in three of their last four games, the Lakers allowed 20, 22 and 24 fast break points! The only team that didn't score 20 fast break points or more against the Lakers on this span was the Nets and simply because they don't like to run on transitions! The Lakers have been also struggling in defending pick and rolls, as Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant aren't putting a lot of effort on defense right now. Considering the fact that Miami's offense is #3 on pick and roll ball handler plays with 0.86 PPP and #3 on transitions with 1.22 PPP, I can only expect the Heat to have a huge offensive game tonight. Lebron James is currently playing at a level that even without Ray Allen and Chris Bosh, Miami is still capable of crushing top teams like the Clippers like on their last game. What about the Lakers? Well, they were down by 20 points against the Bobcats on their last game. I guess this says it all.
I know that the Lakers were very competitive against Miami back in LA, even though they lost the game by 9 points. The Lakers dominated the boards with a dominant game from Dwight Howard, who grabbed 16 rebounds in 38 minutes, while even Pau Gasol played well on offense. However, there is a factor that was decisive in that game. Miami was on a terrible physical spot at the time, as they were playing their final game of a road game, while they were also on a back to back spot and playing their third game in four nights, as they had played at Utah and Golden State in the previous nights. On the other hand, the Lakers were rested for that game. The spot is completely the opposite this time and so, I believe the Lakers won't have the skills or the legs to keep up with a motivated Heat team playing on National TV today. Therefore, I'll be taking Miami in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 804 Miami Heat (-8,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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