{"id":11344,"date":"2010-12-08T13:57:13","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T18:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11344"},"modified":"2010-12-08T13:57:13","modified_gmt":"2010-12-08T18:57:13","slug":"free-nba-picks-miami-heat-at-utah-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-nba-picks-miami-heat-at-utah-jazz-11344\/","title":{"rendered":"Free NBA Picks: Miami Heat at Utah Jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat AT Utah Jazz
\nDecember 8th, 2010, 9:05 EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Utah Jazz -2
\nCurrent Line: Miami Heat -1
\nCurrent Total: 190
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Undefined<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
LeBron will face a tough task tonight trying to exploit Utah forward Andrei "AK47" Kirilenko<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miami, after flirting with a .500 record, have since won 5 straight games, notching wins over Milwaukee, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington.\u00a0 They have yet to lose in December.\u00a0 They seek to avenge a two point loss at home to Utah on November 9th and are starting to show that they have the necessary cohesiveness and integration to do so.\u00a0 Utah won their last game against Memphis by 11 points and have won 8 of their last 10 games, and now sport a 16-6 record.\u00a0 They are 8-4 against the Eastern Conference and 9-4 at home.<\/p>\n

Because of Miami’s propensity to blowout the poor teams, they have a great point differential of +8.5, outscoring their opponents on average 100.1 to 91.7.\u00a0 Their 91.7 allowed is the lowest points allowed by any NBA team.\u00a0 They also allow only 42.7% FG from opponents, also a league best.\u00a0 The second best team in that statistic?\u00a0 None other than Utah, who allow very close to the same 42.9%.<\/p>\n

Miami is 5-12 ATS in their last 17 games and the total has gone OVER in four of Miami’s last six games on the road.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 7 of the last 9 home games for Utah.\u00a0 The total has also gone over in 11 of the past 15 games between the teams.\u00a0 Utah is 1-5 ATS over the last 6 games against Miami in Utah.<\/p>\n

Some Key Matchups for tonight:
\n
\nAndrei Kirilenko vs LeBron James<\/strong><\/p>\n

There aren’t a lot of players capable of giving LeBron problems on offense, but Kirilenko is one who can.\u00a0 Standing 6’9 with arms that seem to stretch back to his homeland of Russia, Kirilenko has the length to frusterate LeBron and is going to be good with weak side blocks against Bosh and Wade.\u00a0 He isn’t much of a scorer, but that isn’t what Utah needs from him anyway.\u00a0 Last game against Utah, Kirilenko limited LeBron to 20 points, 3 below his season average.\u00a0 LeBron has stepped up his scoring in recent games, however, and has scored 30 or more in 2 of his last 5 games.\u00a0 Last game, though, against Milwaukee, he scored only 17, going 7 of 16 from the floor.\u00a0 Kirilenko will allow LeBron to rest a little on defense, but that could be hazardous to the Heat as Kirilenko is a good player off the ball and can create well for teammates.
\n
\nPaul Millsap vs Chris Bosh<\/strong><\/p>\n

Millsap absolutely punished Bosh last meeting in a second half Utah comeback, scoring 46 for the game, his career high.\u00a0 Millsap also held Bosh to but 17 points that game, and Bosh is averaging his lowest since the 2004-2005 season.\u00a0 He has improved in recent games, scoring 20 or more in 3 of his last 6 games, but will face a tough challenge in being covered by Millsap who has the lateral speed to keep Bosh in front of him and also has the muscle to push Bosh around down low.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s game should be a very good one.\u00a0 Miami will have to play a lot better than they did last outing against Utah, however, to have any chance at all.\u00a0 Interesting to note is that the original line favored Utah but has since shifted to favor Miami.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat AT Utah Jazz December 8th, 2010, 9:05 EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Utah Jazz -2 Current Line: Miami Heat -1 Current Total: 190 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Undefined Miami, after flirting with a .500 record, have since won 5 straight games, notching wins over Milwaukee, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington.\u00a0 They have yet to lose in December.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[3739,692,2896,66,707,3784,838],"class_list":["post-11344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-andrei-kirilenko","tag-chris-bosh","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat","tag-paul-millsap","tag-utah-jazz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11344","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11344"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11346,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11344\/revisions\/11346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}