{"id":12921,"date":"2011-01-30T09:16:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T14:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12921"},"modified":"2011-01-30T09:16:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-30T14:16:48","slug":"pro-basketball-betting-miami-heat-at-oklahoma-city-thunder-expert-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/pro-basketball-betting-miami-heat-at-oklahoma-city-thunder-expert-predictions-12921\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro Basketball Betting: Miami Heat at Oklahoma City Thunder Expert Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Oklahoma City Thunder
\nSunday, 1\/30\/11, 1:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 AB<\/strong>C<\/p>\n

\"Kevin<\/a>
The Oklahoma City Thunder have an opportunity to make some noise by defeating the Miami Heat in front of a national audience Sunday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miami is coming off a come-from-behind 88-87 home victory over the Detroit Pistons without the services of forward Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade.\u00a0 The Heat were led by the amazing exploits of star LeBron James, but even he knows he can\u2019t do it alone.\u00a0 \u201cHealth is No. 1,\u201d James said.\u00a0 \u201cWe know we have to be healthy.\u201d\u00a0 The team doesn\u2019t usually have injured players go on single-game road trips, which seems to be a signal that both Bosh and Wade will return to the lineup on Sunday.\u00a0 Miami has a solid 32-14 overall record, including an 11-7 mark versus the Western Conference.\u00a0 Through the first 23 road games, the squad has garnered a 13-10 ATS mark and bettors will need to watch the NBA lines page throughout the day.<\/p>\n

The Heat and the Thunder meet for the first of two match-ups this season.\u00a0 Last season, Miami lost the season series, 0-2, after sweeping the series the year prior.\u00a0 Miami has won seven of the last 10 overall contests the two franchises have played. \u00a0 The \u201cBig Three\u201d have been banged up over the last few weeks, but the team has received a shot in the arm due to Mike Miller\u2019s play from the perimeter.\u00a0 In his two starts, both double-doubles, Miller has averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds.\u00a0 The Heat have found considerable success on the road this season, tying for an NBA-best 15 wins thus far, but have lost four straight away from South Beach.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City has strung together a two-game winning streak entering today\u2019s contests , with both games being won in overtime over Minnesota and Washington.\u00a0 The Thunder certainly know that the level of competition will be raised in this matchup, especially due to a national television audience.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re going against a great team in Miami,\u201d Thunder forward Jeff Green stated.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re going to have our work cut out for us, so we\u2019re going to have to bring our A-game.\u201d\u00a0 The squad is a solid 17-6 overall at home on the season, including a dominating 8-1 mark against Eastern Conference opponents.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 16-6 ATS versus the Southeast division over the last three years.<\/p>\n

The Thunder will look to capture a seventh consecutive home victory this afternoon and will ultimately lean heavily on star Kevin Durant, who will be looking to hit the 40-point scoring plateau for the third consecutive game for the first time in his career.\u00a0 Sunday\u2019s contest features a battle of the two highest scoring duos in the league, with Durant and point guard Russell Westbrook combining for 51.5 points per game, which is slightly higher than James and Wade of the Heat.\u00a0 \u201cI know I\u2019ve grown as a player,\u201d Durant commented.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t need anybody else to stamp that for me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve just got to continue to keep pushing and play within the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bettors will be highly interested in playing the Heat due to the road team being 9-1 ATS in the last 10 meetings, while the Thunder are 1-5 ATS overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Oklahoma City Thunder Sunday, 1\/30\/11, 1:00 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ABC Miami is coming off a come-from-behind 88-87 home victory over the Detroit Pistons without the services of forward Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade.\u00a0 The Heat were led by the amazing exploits of star LeBron James, but even he knows he can\u2019t do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[2896,1193,66,707,399,3298],"class_list":["post-12921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-kevin-durant","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12921","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=12921"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12923,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12921\/revisions\/12923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}