{"id":21643,"date":"2012-02-12T11:30:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T16:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=21643"},"modified":"2012-02-12T11:10:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-12T16:10:00","slug":"nba-predictions-miami-heat-vs-atlanta-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-predictions-miami-heat-vs-atlanta-hawks-21643\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Predictions: Miami Heat vs. Atlanta Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Atlanta Hawks
\nSunday, 2\/12\/12, 7:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -4.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Miami -4
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 190
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 189.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Atlanta Hawks have great success when All-Star guard Joe Johnson scores 20 or more points<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miami has split its first two games against Atlanta during the 2011-12 campaign, registering a 116-109 overtime win in the last meeting as one-point road favorites.\u00a0 The Heat played that particular contest with stars LeBron James and Dwyane Wade on the bench nursing injuries.\u00a0 \u201cThe tendency is to let your guard down, and we certainly did,\u201d stated Atlanta head coach Larry Drew about that meeting.\u00a0 The team is 8-5 versus Eastern Conference foes, including a 6-2 mark on the road.\u00a0 Miami is 3-3 ATS versus division foes this season.<\/p>\n

The Heat are 49-40 all-time versus the Hawks, but are 17-27 in games played in Atlanta.\u00a0 Miami is led offensively by James, who is averaging team highs of 28.1 points and 7.0 assists per game, while Wade has been coming on in contributing 27.2 point per contest over the past five games.\u00a0 A victory tonight would give the squad a 21-7 record, tying its best 28-game start in franchise history.\u00a0 Offensively, the team is averaging 102.9 points per game, which is second-most in the league.<\/p>\n

Atlanta has won its last two games and has gone \u201cunder\u201d the total in six of seven contests.\u00a0 The Hawks came away with an 89-87 overtime win over the Orlando Magic as five-point road underdogs last time out.\u00a0 All-Star guard Joe Johnson has managed to score a combined 41 points in the first two meetings, but will need to get some help from forward Josh Smith.\u00a0 He scored 17 points in the triple-overtime loss versus the Heat, but scored just four of those points in regulation.\u00a0 Atlanta is 4-6 ATS as a home underdog of 3.5 to 6 points the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Hawks enter with a 9-4 home record, which includes a 7-2 mark versus Eastern opponents.\u00a0 Atlanta will try to get things going from beyond the arc, ranking second in the NBA in shooting 39.1 percent from three-point range.\u00a0 Johnson is tied for ninth in hitting 52 3-point shots, while shooting 38 percent from that distance.\u00a0 The team is 12-1 when he manages to score 20-or-more points.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Heat due to their 4-0 ATS mark in the last four meetings in Atlanta, while the Hawks are 0-5 ATS as an underdog of 4.5 points or less.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Atlanta Hawks Sunday, 2\/12\/12, 7:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -4.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Miami -4 Opening Total:\u00a0 190 Current Total:\u00a0 189.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Miami has split its first two games against Atlanta during the 2011-12 campaign, registering a 116-109 overtime win in the last meeting as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[834,2896,3622,2897,66,707],"class_list":["post-21643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-eastern-conference","tag-joe-johnson","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21643","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=21643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21644,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21643\/revisions\/21644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}