{"id":22495,"date":"2012-03-25T09:36:11","date_gmt":"2012-03-25T14:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22495"},"modified":"2012-03-25T09:36:11","modified_gmt":"2012-03-25T14:36:11","slug":"nba-picks-miami-heat-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-picks-miami-heat-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder-22495\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Picks: Miami Heat vs. Oklahoma City Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Oklahoma City Thunder
\nSunday, 3\/25\/12, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -1
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -2
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 200
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 201.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Oklahoma City Thunder are slight home favorites against the Miami Heat on Sunday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miami will put its four-game win streak on the line when traveling to take on the Oklahoma City Thunder inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena on Sunday night, coming off an impressive 88-73 win over the Detroit Pistons as nine-point road favorites.\u00a0 The Heat are definitely motivated in trying to capture the No. 1 overall seed in the upcoming NBA playoffs, but will likely be battling it out for the second spot.\u00a0 \u201cI think once you get to a certain part in the playoffs, everybody\u2019s a good road team,\u201d commented Heat forward Chris Bosh.\u00a0 The team is 15-9 on the road this year, including a 3-5 mark versus Western Conference opponents.\u00a0 Miami is 5-7 ATS in March and the \u201cunder\u201d is 8-3 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Heat will want to get the ball into the hands of star forward LeBron James, who averages 28.6 points in 14 career games against the Thunder.\u00a0 Miami split last year\u2019s series with Oklahoma City, with each team winning on the road.\u00a0 A win tonight would give the squad a 36-11 record, which would mark the best 47-game start in franchise history.\u00a0 Miami currently trails the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference standings, but is percentage points ahead of tonight\u2019s opponent for the No. 2 overall seed.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City is coming off a thrilling 149-140 overtime win over the Minnesota Timberwolves as 10-point home favorites, while going \u201cover\u201d the total for the seventh time in 10 games.\u00a0 The Thunder have averaged 112.1 points on 50.5 percent shooting over the last eight games, but have also alternated wins and losses versus the Las Vegas number over the last 11 games.\u00a0 Playing in tonight\u2019s venue is definitely an advantage for this youthful roster, as it comes in with the third-best home record in the NBA.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 4-12 ATS after scoring 105 points or more this season.<\/p>\n

The Thunder are led by the talented duo of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook on the offensive end, combining to score 52.2 points per game.\u00a0 They are the highest-scoring tandem in the NBA.\u00a0 Oklahoma City will definitely be looking to get Durant the ball down the stretch, as he\u2019s averaged 32.2 points over his last five games against Miami.\u00a0 Westbrook hasn\u2019t fared nearly as well in shooting 29.5 percent from the floor in the last three meetings in this series.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Heat due to their 8-3 ATS mark on one days rest, while the Thunder are 0-5 ATS following a straight-up win.<\/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 Oklahoma City Thunder Sunday, 3\/25\/12, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -1 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -2 Opening Total:\u00a0 200 Current Total:\u00a0 201.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Miami will put its four-game win streak on the line when traveling to take on the Oklahoma City Thunder inside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[6622,1193,66,707,18,399,3298],"class_list":["post-22495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-chesapeake-energy-arena","tag-kevin-durant","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22495","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=22495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22496,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22495\/revisions\/22496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}