NBA - 801 Miami Heat @ 802 New York Knicks
Projected Line: 194 points
We have a good rivalry series in here, with Miami being on a double revenge spot, after having surprisingly lost their first two games of the season against the Knicks. The first game was played under very special circumstances, as it was played in the middle of Hurricane Sandy, while the second contest was even weirder, as the Knicks without Carmelo Anthony went to Miami and crushed the Heat by 112-92, while shooting 18-44 (41%) 3pts! For today, Miami has a revenge mindset, but I don't like their physical spot for today. They hosted Memphis last Friday night, in a very physical game that had nothing in comparison to the previous games of the Heat, where they were toying with lowly teams. This time, Miami had to show good intensity throughout the whole game, with Lebron James being forced to play 42 minutes! That game had a slow pace of 86.28 and even though the game ended with 189 points, only 179 points had been scored with just 1 minute to go!
Having in account the previous games between these two teams and Miami's recent playing style, I expect this game to be also a slow paced contest. Miami seems comfortable in playing halfcourt basketball, but of course they will try to take any opportunity to score some easy transition points. However, the Knicks are one of the best teams in the league in avoiding turnovers, so I don't believe Miami will have a lot of chances today. The games involving the Knicks are always slow paced contests. Jason Kidd was sent to the bench, as he just couldn't shoot the basket to save his life, while his defensive skills have now regressed due to his lack of speed. Now with James White and Iman Shumpert on the starting backcourt, Mike Woodson is attempting to have their best defensive unit starting the games, in order to compensate their recent offensive problems.
The Knicks's offense has been figured out by their opponents and their lack of ball movement has been putting them in a lot of trouble. The Knicks have just dished 14, 19, 11, 12, 17, 19, 17, 19 and 18 assists on their last eight contests and this will only help Miami's backcourt who is quick enough to defend well the perimeter against an offense like the Knicks. Even though the Heat's 3pts defense has been poor over their last 10 games, this is mostly because they were showing little effort on defense against lowly teams like Portland or Sacramento. Now on a double revenge game against a top team like the Knicks and on National TV, Miami will have a good defensive effort and they will cause problems to the Knicks's offense that has been showing no flow lately. Therefore, I see this contest being a slow paced game, with both teams having some issues on offense. The Knicks will struggle on offense because they have no offensive flow, while Miami is on a poor spot after playing a very physical challenge against Memphis last Friday night. I see this game being a relatively low scoring one and so, I'll be taking the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 801/802 Under 198,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes
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