{"id":11833,"date":"2010-12-23T08:52:47","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T13:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11833"},"modified":"2010-12-23T08:52:47","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T13:52:47","slug":"miami-heat-vs-phoenix-suns-free-nba-picks-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/miami-heat-vs-phoenix-suns-free-nba-picks-predictions-11833\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Heat vs Phoenix Suns Free NBA Picks & Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Phoenix Suns
\nThursday, 12\/23\/10, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -6
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Miami -6.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 209
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 209<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Phoenix Suns are home underdogs aiming for revenge in the second and final meeting of the season with Miami<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miami has won its last three trips to the US Airways Center and will look to make it eight straight wins away from home against the Phoenix Suns Thursday night.\u00a0 \u201cAll year, we\u2019re going to continue to get better, to improve to get to the elite level,\u201d said guard Dwyane Wade.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re 30 games in.\u00a0 These elite teams, they\u2019ve been playing together for a long time.\u201d\u00a0 Wade has picked up his scoring in a big way over the last 10 games by averaging 27.7 points.\u00a0 The Heat did have their 12-game winning streak snapped last time out in a 98-96 home loss to the Mavericks, as the team settled for shooting 31 3-pointers and attempted just 25 free throws.\u00a0 Miami is 1-5 ATS off a upset loss as a favorite and is currently laying points on the NBA lines page tonight.<\/p>\n

The Heat have gone 21-9 overall on the season and compiled a 9-5 road record, including an even 3-3 mark away from Miami against Western opponents.\u00a0 Miami will be facing off against Phoenix for the second and final time tonight, grabbing a 123-96 home victory in the first meeting on November 17.\u00a0 The team has won 10 of its last 13 games by double-digits.\u00a0 Forward Chris Bosh is starting to get acclimated in the offense and it started with a 35-point effort against the Suns, which was expected as he averaged 28.1 points and 11.7 rebounds in his last seven games against them.<\/p>\n

Phoenix will have a few new parts that will be making an appearance in the lineup tonight, including Vince Carter due to a trade that was completed Sunday with Orlando.\u00a0 \u201cWe should be optimistic,\u201d said point guard Steve Nash.\u00a0 \u201cWe got a lot of guys comine in that give us size, depth, scoring and defense.\u00a0 We should be a better team.\u201d\u00a0 The Suns will look to move back to .500 in their 28th games this season and have garnered a 7-5 home record on the year.\u00a0 The team dropped a 118-110 contest versus the San Antonio Spurs at the AT&T Center last time out, playing for the third time in four days at the end of a difficult road trip.\u00a0 Phoenix is 11-15 ATS on the season and 4-8 ATS at home.<\/p>\n

The Suns have dropped the three most recent meetings in the Valley of the Sun, but have won eight of the last 12 overall at tonight\u2019s venue.\u00a0 Phoenix won the first 16 meetings between the teams and carry an overall advantage of 31-14 in the series.\u00a0 The schedule has been incredibly difficult of late and tonight the squad will be playing its fourth consecutive games against a 20-win team.\u00a0 By comparison, Miami has played just three 20-win teams all season and gone 1-5 in those six games.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Heat are 0-5 ATS on two days rest, while the Suns are 4-1 ATS in the same situation.<\/p>\n

The NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports are rolling along and can\u2019t wait for you to join them tonight!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Phoenix Suns Thursday, 12\/23\/10, 10:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 TNT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -6 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Miami -6.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 209 Current Total:\u00a0 209 Miami has won its last three trips to the US Airways Center and will look to make it eight straight wins away from home against the Phoenix […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[692,2896,707,577,576,4249,1482],"class_list":["post-11833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-chris-bosh","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-miami-heat","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-steve-nash","tag-us-airways-center","tag-vince-carter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11833","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=11833"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11835,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11833\/revisions\/11835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}