{"id":11578,"date":"2010-12-16T22:15:01","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T03:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11578"},"modified":"2010-12-16T18:12:19","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T23:12:19","slug":"pro-basketball-handicapping-miami-heat-at-new-york-knicks-expert-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/pro-basketball-handicapping-miami-heat-at-new-york-knicks-expert-predictions-11578\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro Basketball Handicapping: Miami Heat at New York Knicks Expert Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at New York Knicks
\nFriday, 12\/17\/10, 7:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -4.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Miami -5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 209
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 209.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The New York Knicks welcome in another Eastern Conference power to Madison Square Garden on Friday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miami is coming off a less than enthusiastic 101-95 home win over the Cleveland Cavaliers and moved its winning streak to 10 in the process.\u00a0 The Heat were able to overcome in early double-digit deficit, but head coach Erik Spoelstra was less than pleased with the team\u2019s performance.\u00a0 \u201cIf we\u2019re true to ourselves, we could have played a more consistent game,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 The club has a 19-8 overall record and has posted a 7-5 mark on the road.\u00a0 If the Heat win tonight, it will be their sixth consecutive road win, tying the streak with the fourth-longest in franchise history.\u00a0 Miami is 4-0 ATS as a road favorite of 5.0 to 10.5 points and are currently a five-point favorite on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Heat have recorded nine wins so far in the month of December, already surpassing last year\u2019s total of seven victories.\u00a0 Miami has also enjoyed dominance on the boards over the past six games by out-rebounding opponents by a 278-218 margin.\u00a0 The two teams will be meeting for the first of four matchups on Friday night and Miami swept the season series 3-0 last year.\u00a0 In fact, the Heat have won the last five meetings between the two clubs, but are still 37-53 all-time versus the Knicks in the regular season, including a 15-31 mark in games played in New York.<\/p>\n

New York had its eight-game winning streak snapped in dramatic fashion by dropping a 118-116 home game to the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night.\u00a0 The Knicks may have lost the game, but many NBA experts believe the club has gained the respect of the league and Boston in particular after the losing effort.\u00a0 \u201cI guarantee you that Boston respects us,\u201d said forward Amare Stoudemire.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re no slouches.\u00a0 We are going to play every single night until the horn goes off.\u201d\u00a0 He finished with 39 points and 10 rebounds, while remaining high on everyone\u2019s list for league MVP.\u00a0 New york is 5-1 ATS as an underdog of 5.0 to 10.5 points.<\/p>\n

The Knicks will be finishing up a three-game homestand when they host the Heat and will be playing the front-end of the club\u2019s ninth back-to-back set.\u00a0 New York is 4-4 in the first game with four sweeps.\u00a0 Expect Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler to play a major part in tonight\u2019s outcome, as they averaged 22.3 and 18 points respectively in the two meetings against Miami last season.\u00a0 Defensively, the squad will need to keep close watch on Heat guard Dwyane Wade, who averaged 29.3 points in the series last year.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Heat are 4-0 ATS in the last four meetings, while the Knicks are 15-5-1 ATS as an underdog.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a huge hard court season and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports take care of you on a nightly basis!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at New York Knicks Friday, 12\/17\/10, 7:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -4.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Miami -5 Opening Total:\u00a0 209 Current Total:\u00a0 209.5 Miami is coming off a less than enthusiastic 101-95 home win over the Cleveland Cavaliers and moved its winning streak to 10 in the process.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[669,212,2896,3704,707,115,3183],"class_list":["post-11578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-amare-stoudemire","tag-danilo-gallinari","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-erik-spoelstra","tag-miami-heat","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-wilson-chandler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11578","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=11578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11580,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11578\/revisions\/11580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}