{"id":10718,"date":"2010-11-17T10:19:10","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T15:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=10718"},"modified":"2010-11-17T10:19:10","modified_gmt":"2010-11-17T15:19:10","slug":"phoenix-suns-vs-miami-heat-nba-handicapping-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/phoenix-suns-vs-miami-heat-nba-handicapping-picks-10718\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Suns vs Miami Heat NBA Handicapping Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Suns at Miami Heat
\nWednesday, 11\/17\/10, 7:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -9
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Miami -8
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 208
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 209
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Miami -370 \/ Phoenix +310<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Miami Heat G Dwyane Wade has led the team in scoring in five of the last six games, as his team is favored by eight points tonight over the visiting Suns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Phoenix Suns head east and start a four-game road trip in Miami to tackle the Heat after picking up a 100-94 win over the Denver Nuggets.\u00a0 \u201cI think guys are starting to get comfortable playing with each other and it\u2019s shown in the last couple of games we\u2019ve played,\u201d said guard Jason Richardson.\u00a0 The Suns have played much better of late, winning four of their last five games after suffering through a slow start to their season.\u00a0 The team is two games above .500 for the first time during the 2010-11 season and enter tonight\u2019s game on a season-high three-game winning streak.\u00a0 Phoenix enters tonight\u2019s play 3-0 on the first night of a back-to-back and 1-2 on the second night, as they will play in Miami tonight and Orlando on Thursday.\u00a0 Phoenix is 5-5 ATS on the season and the NBA lines page has them as an eight-point underdog.<\/p>\n

The Suns have won three of their last four games and the two clubs split the season series in 2009 (1-1) with each winning on the other\u2019s home court.\u00a0 Phoenix has won four of the last five in Miami, while the Heat own a three-game win streak in Phoenix.\u00a0 A major strength for this team has been its bench play, a unit that currently ranks third in the NBA in scoring (39.3) behind only the Philadelphia 76ers (43.4) and Cleveland Cavaliers (42.8).\u00a0 The reserves are nearly doubling the output of their opponents this season by a 39.3 to 22.2 margin.\u00a0 Point guard Steve Nash has also upped his play over the last six games, averaging 11.5 assists over that stretch after starting the season dishing out just 6.8 per contest.<\/p>\n

Miami enters tonight\u2019s contest on three days rest and a 6-4 overall record with many starting to wonder if this power trio was a good idea.\u00a0 \u201cAll of us understand how this team is being perceived,\u201d said head coach Eric Spoelstra.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019d be totally naive if I didn\u2019t know what was going on out there.\u201d\u00a0 The Heat defense has fallen back after its impressive start to the season, allowing an average of 109.3 points while losing two of three.\u00a0 \u201cWe just have to keep on continuing to grind games defensively and build those good habits,\u201d the head man reiterated.\u00a0 The team is still holding opponents to just 93.3 points per game, while averaging 102.7 points a contest offensively.\u00a0 Miami is 4-6 ATS on the season and 0-2 ATS as a home favorite of 6.5 to 9 points.<\/p>\n

The Heat have been led offensively by guard Dwyane Wade leading the team in scoring in five of the last six games, while forward LeBron James has recorded three consecutive double-doubles.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019d be a fool to say it\u2019s hard to play with LeBron,\u201d said Wade.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not complicated.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a treat, it\u2019s been joyous.\u201d\u00a0 He ended up scoring 31 points and James pitched in with 23 in the squad\u2019s 109-100 victory over the Raptors.\u00a0 Miami has been at its best coming out of the break, outscoring opponents by a 273-196 margin in the third quarter this season.<\/p>\n

Bettors will find that the Suns are 10-3 ATS following a SU win, while the Heat are 0-5 ATS in their last five games overall.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on all the action tonight and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports show you the way to the winners circle!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Suns at Miami Heat Wednesday, 11\/17\/10, 7:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -9 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Miami -8 Opening Total:\u00a0 208 Current Total:\u00a0 209 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Miami -370 \/ Phoenix +310 Phoenix Suns head east and start a four-game road trip in Miami to tackle the Heat after picking up a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[2896,3818,66,707,577,576],"class_list":["post-10718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-eric-spoelstra","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-steve-nash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10719,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718\/revisions\/10719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}