{"id":14001,"date":"2011-03-10T08:09:57","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T13:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14001"},"modified":"2011-03-10T08:09:57","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T13:09:57","slug":"battle-in-south-beach-l-a-lakers-vs-miami-heat-betting-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/battle-in-south-beach-l-a-lakers-vs-miami-heat-betting-preview-14001\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle In South Beach: L.A. Lakers vs Miami Heat Betting Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers AT Miami Heat<\/strong>
\nMar 10, 2011 at 7 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: LA -2<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 LA -2<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 188<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 188.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 LA -130 \/ Mia +110<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 LA -123 \/ Mia +111<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Gasol should have his way inside tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For as good as the Heat had been, they have been equally as bad of late.\u00a0 As losers of their last 5 they face the defending champs tonight.\u00a0 The Heat have fallen to third in the Eastern Conference and are only 2 games ahead of fourth seed Orlando.\u00a0 And it has given most fans immense satisfaction to see the Heat fail.<\/p>\n

Laker coach Phil Jackson commented on the phenomenon, \u201cFrom what I\u2019ve heard, this team feels like they\u2019re being looked at to lose, or they\u2019ve been hoped at to lose,\u201d Jackson stated. \u201cI know locally that can\u2019t stand true, but nationally, if that\u2019s the case, it\u2019s a burden to carry. And then those games that are dramatic become bigger than they really should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

For all the panic that fans seem to proliferate, Bosh isn’t buying much into it.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re all in this together, but at the end of the day, we know what people are going to be looking at,\u201d Bosh said. \u201cAnd we know who\u2019s going to get the finger pointed at them first. And rightfully so\u2014we asked for this, coming together, and we knew that coming into the situation. We take the responsibility of it. It is what it is, no matter what we say, no matter what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of the Lakers’ last 5 games and they are 5-0 SU in their last 5 games.\u00a0 The Lakers are 5-0 SU in their last 5 road games and the total has gone UNDER in 8 of the Lakers’ past 12 games against the Heat.\u00a0 The Lakers are 2-4 ATS in their last 6 games on the road against the Heat.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of the Lakers’ last 6 games on the road against the Heat and the Lakers are 1-5 SU in their last 6 road games against Miami.<\/p>\n

Miami is 0-5 SU in their last 5 games and 0-5 ATS in those games as well.\u00a0 Miami is 16-6 SU in their last 22 at home and they are 0-5 ATS in their last 5 home games.\u00a0 Miami is 1-4 SU in their last 5 games at home and the total has gone UNDER in 8 of Miami’s last 12 games against the Lakers.\u00a0 Miami is 5-1 SU in their last 6 games at home against the Lakers and the total has gone UNDER in 5 of the last 6 home games against the Lakers.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kobe Bryant vs. Dwyane Wade<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing is better than a matchup of 2 of the best 5 players in the league and the very best two at the shooting guard position.\u00a0 For all the Heat’s struggles it is hard to blame Wade.\u00a0 He’s putting up 26.5 points per game over the last 4 and scored 38 against Portland Tuesday night.\u00a0 Kobe recently made the declaration that he is still out to take it to opposing teams with fury.\u00a0 When asked about the Heat’s struggles, Kobe said \u201cIt takes a little adjusting, I guess,\u201d Bryant said of LeBron and Dwyane Wade. \u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019m still trying to kill people.\u201d\u00a0 It won’t be easy for Bryant to “kill” Wade, as Wade’s strong offense and defense should give him an ample chance to compete with Bryant.<\/p>\n

Lamar Odom \/ Pau Gasol \/ Andrew Bynum vs Chris Bosh \/ Zydrunas Ilgauskas \/ Erick Dampier<\/strong><\/p>\n

It doesn’t get much worse than this for most teams, and Miami is certainly going to struggle with the Lakers’ interior strength on both ends of the court.\u00a0 Keeping Odom, Gasol, and Bynum off the offensive glass should be a near impossibility for Ilgauskas and Dampier won’t have much better luck.\u00a0 Look for Pau Gasol to have a big game since Bosh probably won’t cover him the entire time.\u00a0 Bosh will likely match up with Odom when Odom is in the game and when it is Gasol and Bynum, he’ll cover Gasol.<\/p>\n

The Heat have the Lakers beat on the perimeter and the Lakers have the Heat beat on the interior.\u00a0 Which will win out?\u00a0 NBA Oddsmakers have slightly favored the Lakers, and given the Heat’s struggles, it’s easy to see why they are underdogs tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers AT Miami Heat Mar 10, 2011 at 7 PM EST Opening Line: LA -2 Current Line:\u00a0 LA -2 Opening Total:\u00a0 188 Current Total: 188.5 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 LA -130 \/ Mia +110 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 LA -123 \/ Mia +111 For as good as the Heat had been, they have been equally as bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[795,692,2896,67,187,3344,66,707,909],"class_list":["post-14001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-andrew-bynum","tag-chris-bosh","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-la-lakers","tag-lamar-odom","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat","tag-pau-gasol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14001","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=14001"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14003,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14001\/revisions\/14003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}