Projected Line: 206 points
Miami easily won at Minnesota last Monday, even though they were on a bad spot with a back to back game plus a big trip from New York to Minnesota! The Heat shot 51.4% FG with 25-32 FG at the rim, in a clear showing of their offensive skills, even though they struggled in two areas. They committed 24 turnovers, in a season high for them. This sloppiness is related to their bad spot, but also due to the Wolves's good defense. In fact, one of the few things that Minnesota has been doing well is forcing turnovers. They are using a 3-guards rotation and this allows them to put a lot of pressure on the ball handler. Miami also struggled on 3pts shooting with 5-21 23.8% 3pts| This was related with their poor physical spot, as they are #2 in the league with 39.1% 3pts, but they are shooting just 49-131 37% 3pts on back to back spots!
The Heat is returning home tonight with 1 day rest and they will face the awful Magic defense, so this is an excellent spot for a huge offensive game for them. Orlando doesn't have a good interior defense to limit Miami's drives to the basket, their pick and roll defense is also terrible with 0.90 PPP allowed over their last 10 games, their transition defense is non-existent against athletic teams, as shown by Sacramento who scored 25 fast break points against them and Houston who scored 17! Bottom line, Orlando's defensive ratings over their last four games (126.71, 131.72, 125.56 and 114.94) shows that they are playing zero defense right now.
So, the question in here is to know what Orlando's offense will do tonight. First of all, Miami's mindset for tonight won't be to perform a defensive lockdown. They don't need that and this hasn't been happening during this winning streak in games against lowly teams. Miami always has their lazy moments on defense during this kind of games, but when they need, they put an extra gear on their game and create a gap in the scoreboard via offense. Orlando is coming from a win at New Orleans where they scored 69 points in the second half! Jameer Nelson returned to the team in that game and the Magic had a nice 26/8 A/TO ratio in that game. With Nelson and Afflalo on the backcourt, Orlando has some scoring punch thanks to their guards, while Orlando should also have some offensive rebounding edge tonight. Therefore, I expect a very high scoring game tonight and so, I'll be taking the Over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 711/712 Over 202 @ -115 / 1.87 on Bovada
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