{"id":23355,"date":"2012-06-12T09:21:39","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T14:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=23355"},"modified":"2012-06-12T09:21:39","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T14:21:39","slug":"nba-finals-2012-miami-heat-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder-game-1-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-finals-2012-miami-heat-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder-game-1-preview-23355\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Finals 2012: Miami Heat vs. Oklahoma City Thunder, Game 1 Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Oklahoma City Thunder
\nTuesday, 6\/12\/12, 9:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -4.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 194.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 195.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Oklahoma City Thunder F Kevin Durant is chasing after his first NBA title<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miami is hoping for a different result in reaching the NBA Finals for a second consecutive year, as it watched the Dallas Mavericks celebrate winning the championship in capturing last year\u2019s series in six games.\u00a0 \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a great matchup,\u201d commented Heat guard Dwyane Wade about playing the Thunder.\u00a0 The Heat have reached this stage by moving past the New York Knicks, Indiana Pacers and Boston Celtics, but could be fatigued after capturing the 2012 Eastern Conference final in seven games.\u00a0 Miami is 1-5 ATS as an underdog this season, with the \u201cunder\u201d going 5-1 in those contests.<\/p>\n

The Heat have been led by LeBron James offensively during the 2012 NBA playoffs, averaging 30.8 points, while tying a franchise record in the postseason by scoring 30-plus in his last three games.\u00a0 Miami is 12-6 during the playoffs, splitting its eight games away from South Beach.\u00a0 It\u2019s still important to note that the squad has won nine postseason games over the last two seasons, which leads all NBA teams.\u00a0 Power forward Chris Bosh should have more of an impact in this series, as he played in just three games against the Celtics due to an abdominal injury, scoring 19 points in Game 7 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City has won all eight of its games during the playoffs inside Chesapeake Energy Arena, while posting a 34-7 overall mark inside the venue since the start of the 2011-12 season.\u00a0 The Thunder doesn\u2019t need to accomplish anything else other than maintaining home-court advantage in hopes of winning their first NBA championship.\u00a0 The core of this group have youth on its side, with Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook all being 23 or younger.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 19-8 ATS against Southeast division opponents the las two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Thunder and Heat split their two regular-season meetings this year, with both teams holding serve on its home court.\u00a0 Oklahoma City tallied a 103-87 blowout win over Miami as two-point favorites on March 25, as the defense was able to limit James to just 17 points on 8-of-18 shooting from the floor.\u00a0 It will be hard to pick against this rising team after dispersing the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference playoffs.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Heat due to the underdog being 9-4 ATS in the last 13 meetings, while the Thunder are 2-5 in their last seven home games in this series.<\/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 Tuesday, 6\/12\/12, 9:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -4.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -5 Opening Total:\u00a0 194.5 Current Total:\u00a0 195.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Miami is hoping for a different result in reaching the NBA Finals for a second consecutive year, as it watched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[6774,1193,66,707,399],"class_list":["post-23355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-2012-nba-finals","tag-kevin-durant","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23355","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=23355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23356,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23355\/revisions\/23356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}