{"id":12563,"date":"2011-01-18T09:55:52","date_gmt":"2011-01-18T14:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12563"},"modified":"2011-01-18T09:55:52","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T14:55:52","slug":"nba-expert-analysis-atlanta-hawks-at-miami-heat-free-picks-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-expert-analysis-atlanta-hawks-at-miami-heat-free-picks-predictions-12563\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Expert Analysis: Atlanta Hawks at Miami Heat Free Picks & Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atlanta Hawks at Miami Heat
\nTuesday, 1\/18\/11, 7:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 NBA TV<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Miami Heat are dealing with numerous injuries heading into tonight's contest against the Atlanta Hawks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Atlanta will have a difficult time scoring a victory in Miami regardless of who makes it on the floor Tuesday night due to dropping 25 of 28 since the start of the 1996-97 season when playing in South Beach.\u00a0 The Hawks are 27-15 overall on the season and have tallied an 8-6 mark on the road against Eastern Conference opponents.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re a tough team,\u201d said coach Larry Drew.\u00a0 \u201cAnytime you have guys that can potentially be 20-plus every night, you got your hands full.\u201d\u00a0 The team is likely to rely heavily on its defense in trying to pull off the upset tonight, holding opponents to 92.9 points per game over the last 15 contests.\u00a0 On the season, the Hawks are allowing 95.3 points a game, which is tied for the eighth best mark in the NBA.\u00a0 Atlanta is 7-5 ATS on the year when playing on back-to-back days and bettors must check out the NBA lines page for more information.<\/p>\n

The Hawks are certainly happy that guard Joe Johnson has turned things around since missing time with an elbow injury.\u00a0 He has averaged 28.9 points on 52.4 percent shooting over the last seven games.\u00a0 In last night\u2019s 100-98 win over Sacramento, Johnson scored a season-high 36 points.\u00a0 \u201cWe tried everything on Joe Johnson throughout the game,\u201d said Kings coach Paul Westphal.\u00a0 \u201cBut the guy was just magnificent.\u201d\u00a0 Center Al Horford is also an important piece of the puzzle in adding 23 points and nine rebounds last night, while continuing to be the only player in the NBA hitting 55 percent or better from the field and 82 percent or better from the free throw line.<\/p>\n

Miami is not only dealing with its second three-game losing streak of the season, but has major injury concerns heading into tonight\u2019s action.\u00a0 Forward Chris Bosh is likely out with an ankle injury and LeBron James\u2019 sprained left ankle has him listed as uncertain.\u00a0 Guard Dwyane Wade also missed practice with a sore knee, but is the most likely \u201cBig Three\u201d member to make it onto the court tonight.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re dealing with a little adversity,\u201d said James.\u00a0 \u201cBut the confidence and the mood hasn\u2019t changed.\u201d\u00a0 The Heat will be meeting with the Hawks for the second time this season and picked up an 89-77 home victory in the first meeting on December 4, 2010.\u00a0 Miami is 6-12 ATS at home this season and 1-6 ATS when playing with two days of rest.<\/p>\n

The Heat have scored at least 90 points in 20 consecutive games, which is the sixth best streak in franchise history.\u00a0 Miami also sits atop the league in some important defensive categories, including first in opponent field goal percentage (.429), first in opponent three-point field goal percentage (.325) and fourth in points allowed (93.7).\u00a0 The defense has really turned it up against the Hawks when playing in tonight\u2019s venue, allowing just 80.5 points on 38.2 percent shooting in winning four straight in the series.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Heat due to the home team being 7-1 ATS in the last eight meetings while the Hawks are 6-13 ATS versus the Southeast division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atlanta Hawks at Miami Heat Tuesday, 1\/18\/11, 7:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 NBA TV Atlanta will have a difficult time scoring a victory in Miami regardless of who makes it on the floor Tuesday night due to dropping 25 of 28 since the start of the 1996-97 season when playing in South Beach.\u00a0 The Hawks are […]<\/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":[834,2896,2897,66,707],"class_list":["post-12563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-joe-johnson","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12563","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=12563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12564,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12563\/revisions\/12564"}],"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=12563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}