{"id":12447,"date":"2011-01-13T12:05:04","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T17:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12447"},"modified":"2011-01-13T12:05:04","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T17:05:04","slug":"nba-betting-preview-miami-heat-vs-denver-nuggets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-betting-preview-miami-heat-vs-denver-nuggets-12447\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Betting Preview: Miami Heat vs. Denver Nuggets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat AT Denver Nuggets
\nJanuary 13th, 2011 at 10:30 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Miami -4
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Miami -1.5
\nOpening Total: 205.5
\nCurrent Total: 205
\nOpening Moneyline: Miami -120 \/ Denver +110
\nCurrent Moneyline: Miami -130 \/ Denver +110<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Carmelo may not have his heart in Denver, but he's amped to play against the Heat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tonight could be one of Carmelo Anthony’s final games as a nugget, but whether it will be a showdown between he and draft class mate LeBron James remains to be seen.\u00a0 Anthony, despite being a rental of sorts for the Nuggets at this point, seems amped to play the Heat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be here playing against Miami.\u00a0 Guarantee you that,” said Anthony who has won his last 9 matchups against the Heat at home.\u00a0 \u201cI love all challenges, not just (James).\u00a0 Any great player, I like that challenge of knowing I\u2019ve got to man up against one of the greats in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

LeBron spoke on his ankle injury, \u201cThere\u2019s no damage, I got an X-ray after the game.\u00a0 The doctor told me it\u2019s day-to-day so I\u2019ll see how I feel (Thursday). I don\u2019t have to be a hero in the regular season if I\u2019m not close to 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miami is coming off a tough road loss to the lowly Clippers, who are probably the most exciting bad basketball team in a long time.\u00a0 Miami still has only lost twice in the past twenty three games and remains atop the Eastern Conference standings.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Miami is 21-2 SU in their last 23 games and 13-1 SU in their past 14 road games.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Miami’s last 6 games playing in Denver.\u00a0 Miami is 1-9 SU in their last 10 against the Nuggets and they are 2-7 ATS in their last 9 against Denver.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 4 of their last 6 road games against the Nuggets and they are 0-5 SU in their last 5 in Denver.\u00a0 They are also 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games in Denver.<\/p>\n

Denver is 1-3-1 ATS in their last 5 games and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of their last 6 games at home.\u00a0 Denver is 15-3 SU in their last 18 home games and 5-9-2 ATS in their last 16 home games.<\/p>\n

Key matchups:
\n
\nLeBron James vs. Carmelo Anthony<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is not only the premier matchup of the game but it is one of the best showdowns in the league.\u00a0 Both entered the league in 2003 and have since had a mixed bag of success.\u00a0 LeBron has made a finals appearance and Carmelo has taken the Nuggets to the Western Conference finals, but neither has yet to win their first ring.\u00a0 For his career against the Heat, Carmelo is averaging 26.2 points per game, slightly over 2 higher than his season average of 23.9.\u00a0 His scoring average is down from last year’s 28.2, and part of that can be attributed to his heart not being fully in Denver.\u00a0 But he is never one to back down from a challenge against the best players at his position, of which LeBron certainly is one.\u00a0 LeBron’s numbers, too, are down across the board, but it’s doubtful he minds now that he feels he is playing with a legitimate contender.\u00a0 Both players ordinarily have strength advantages against other small forwards, but will neutralize one another’s strengths tonight, and it will probably be mostly a perimeter battle since neither wants to take the other in the post in particular.
\n
\nDwyane Wade vs. Aaron Afflalo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before you laugh me out of the gym on this one, bear with me.\u00a0 Afflalo is one of Denver’s best defenders and is quietly putting together a nice season.\u00a0 In 35 minutes a night he is scoring 12.6 points a game and grabbing 3.8 boards.\u00a0 It’s paltry in comparision to Wade, but he should be able to give Wade some problems with his pesky defense.\u00a0 Moreover, Afflalo is playing significantly better at home this season where he averages 14.1, a full point and a half higher than his season average.\u00a0 Wade will look to take Affalo to the hole to get Kenyon Martin, Chris Andersen, and Nene Hilario into foul trouble, which will work to Miami’s advantage because their frontline is weaker and if they can get the Nuggets’ frontline into foul trouble then they could take advantage on the boards.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s game should be a very good one, despite the Nuggets team being in disarray.\u00a0 They came out sluggish and apathetic in the first quarter against the Suns last game, but proceeded to turn it on in a hurry in the second quarter and went on to win the game.\u00a0 They won’t have that luxury against the Heat, so they better come out firing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat AT Denver Nuggets January 13th, 2011 at 10:30 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Miami -4 Current Line:\u00a0 Miami -1.5 Opening Total: 205.5 Current Total: 205 Opening Moneyline: Miami -120 \/ Denver +110 Current Moneyline: Miami -130 \/ Denver +110 Tonight could be one of Carmelo Anthony’s final games as a nugget, but whether it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[49,526,2896,66,707],"class_list":["post-12447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-carmelo-anthony","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12447","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=12447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12449,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12447\/revisions\/12449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}