{"id":14136,"date":"2011-03-14T13:40:48","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T18:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14136"},"modified":"2011-03-14T13:40:48","modified_gmt":"2011-03-14T18:40:48","slug":"battle-of-the-titans-san-antonio-at-miami-betting-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/battle-of-the-titans-san-antonio-at-miami-betting-preview-14136\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of the Titans: San Antonio at Miami Betting Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs AT Miami Heat<\/strong>
\nMar 14, 2011 at 8 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Miami -4<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 MIami -4.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 199<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 198.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Mia -175 \/ SA +155<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Mia -220 \/ Sa +185<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Wade will matchup with Manu Ginobili tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For as good as Miami has been at home, San Antonio has been equally good on the road.\u00a0 The Spurs’ NBA best 23-9 at home is nearly as good as Miami’s 24-9 home record and though the Heat are favored in this matchup, San Antonio has a strong chance of pulling the small upset.<\/p>\n

Last time the teams met, San Antonio outscored Miami 36-12 in the first quarter en route to a 30 point blowout victory.\u00a0 San Antonio has the best record in the league and Miami is currently 2.5 games behind Chicago and 3.0 games behind Conference leading Boston.\u00a0 Orlando is right on Miami’s heels, however, and holding their higher seed is important as home court advantage will prove to be very crucial this year (it is always of course).<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/p>\n

Tim Duncan vs. Chris Bosh<\/p>\n

Bosh used to look like a true all star when he was in Toronto, but since assuming “third fiddle” role in Miami, he has looked a lot more average.\u00a0 It’s one of the downsides of moving to a better team.\u00a0 Certainly, however, Chris Bosh doesn’t regret the decision as he is finally on a winning team for the first time in his NBA career.\u00a0 Duncan has been steady his entire career but is having a career low year due to his reduction in minute (he’s playing about 27 a game now).\u00a0 He’s still a force both defensively and on the boards, even if his offense has fallen off a good bit.\u00a0 Bosh will challenge Duncan early and try to get the All-NBA center in early foul trouble.\u00a0 Duncan should be able to use his length to contest Bosh’s jumpers and thus make life that much more difficult on him.<\/p>\n

Manu Ginobili vs. Dwyane Wade<\/p>\n

This should be a very exciting matchup to watch.\u00a0 Both Ginobili and Wade are among the best on their respective teams, though Lebron has a slight scoring edge over Wade.\u00a0 Wade plays a lot bigger than he actually is, getting 6.7 rebounds per game and 1 blocked shot as well.\u00a0 He’ll probably be able to play Ginobili close as he is a quicker player, and Ginobili is pretty fast in his own right.\u00a0 Ginobili can hurt a team in a number of ways, either with dribble penetration, jumpshots, or defensive plays (steals mainly…but also flops!).\u00a0 Both players will probably have big games against one another, but I expect Wade’s to be the better of the two lines.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s game promises to be a great showdown between two of the best teams in the league.\u00a0 San Antonio, as mentioned, is an excellent road team capable of knocking off the very best on their home courts.\u00a0 Miami has struggled against the elite teams in the league so this is a big statement game for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Antonio Spurs AT Miami Heat Mar 14, 2011 at 8 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Miami -4 Current Line:\u00a0 MIami -4.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 199 Current Total:\u00a0 198.5 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Mia -175 \/ SA +155 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Mia -220 \/ Sa +185 For as good as Miami has been at home, San Antonio has been equally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[692,2896,66,3786,707,141,3350],"class_list":["post-14136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-chris-bosh","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-lebron-james","tag-manu-ginobili","tag-miami-heat","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-tim-duncan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14136","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=14136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14138,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14136\/revisions\/14138"}],"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=14136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}