{"id":13058,"date":"2011-02-03T12:29:16","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T17:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13058"},"modified":"2011-02-03T12:29:16","modified_gmt":"2011-02-03T17:29:16","slug":"miami-heat-at-orlando-magic-eastern-conference-showdown-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/miami-heat-at-orlando-magic-eastern-conference-showdown-predictions-13058\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Heat at Orlando Magic Eastern Conference Showdown & Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Orlando Magic
\nThursday, 2\/3\/11, TV: TNT
\nOpening Line: Orlando -2
\nCurrent Line: Orlando PK
\nOpening Total: 197
\nClosing Total: 197<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Orlando Magic look to gain some ground in the divisional race by hosting the Miami Heat Thursday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miami has built a 3 1\/2-game lead on the Orlando Magic in the Southeast Division and will look to gain a 2-1 advantage in the season series tonight at the new Amway Center.\u00a0 The Heat are coming off an impressive 117-90 home win over the lowly Cleveland Cavailers, a game that saw guard Dwyane Wade score 34 points and forward LeBron James adding 24. \u00a0\u201cEvery coach would love to see that 48 minutes of perfect basketball,\u201d said coach Erik Spoelstra.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re working toward that.\u00a0 We know that we\u2019re capable of more.\u201d\u00a0 The team has built a 22-7 record against the Eastern Conference this year, including an 8-4 mark on the road.\u00a0 Miami is 1-7 ATS when playing with two days rest and has moved from a slight underdog on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Heat and Magic meet for the third of four match-ups this season, with the two teams splitting the series thus far.\u00a0 Last season, they split the season series, 2-2.\u00a0 Miami is 44-41 all-time versus Orlando and is 19-24 in games played in the city of Disney.\u00a0 Wade has led the squad offensively, recording three consecutive games with 30-plus points, leaving him a game shy of the franchise record.\u00a0 James also stepped up his game during the month of January by averaging 30.6 points, 8.4 rebounds and 7.4 assists. \u00a0He has increased his scoring average each month of the season thus far during the 2010-11 campaign.<\/p>\n

Orlando dropped a 100-97 road contest last time out to the Memphis Grizzlies and many are contributing the loss to being shorthanded in the fourth quarter.\u00a0 The Magic started the game without key reserve J.J. Redick and also lost starting power forward Brandon Bass.\u00a0 The injuries don\u2019t end there, as Gilbert Arenas, Jameer Nelson and Hedo Turkoglu are all banged up.\u00a0 \u201cRight now, we\u2019re not ready to contend,\u201d said coach Stan Van Gundy.\u00a0 \u201cWe don\u2019t defend hard enough or long enough.\u201d\u00a0 All-Star center Dwight Howard contributed in a big way in a losing effort, scoring 25 points and grabbing 14 rebounds, but picked up another technical foul.\u00a0 He is just three away from an automatic suspension.\u00a0 Orlando is 12-12 ATS at home this season.<\/p>\n

The Magic are a solid 18-6 overall at home this season, including a 12-4 mark against Eastern Conference opponents.\u00a0 Orlando has won eight of the last nine meetings at home in the series.\u00a0 Offensively, the team is averaging 104.4 points over its last 23 games, after scoring just 96.6 a night during the first 26 games of the season.\u00a0 The main reason for the scoring uptick is three-point shooting, hitting at a .383 percentage compared to .352.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Magic due to their 6-2 ATS mark on two days rest, while the Heat are 1-10 ATS in the same situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Orlando Magic Thursday, 2\/3\/11, TV: TNT Opening Line: Orlando -2 Current Line: Orlando PK Opening Total: 197 Closing Total: 197 Miami has built a 3 1\/2-game lead on the Orlando Magic in the Southeast Division and will look to gain a 2-1 advantage in the season series tonight at the new Amway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[3648,833,3622,66,707,659],"class_list":["post-13058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-amway-center","tag-dwight-howard","tag-eastern-conference","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat","tag-orlando-magic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13058","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=13058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13059,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13058\/revisions\/13059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}