{"id":9902,"date":"2010-10-25T18:30:44","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T23:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=9902"},"modified":"2010-10-26T01:29:48","modified_gmt":"2010-10-26T06:29:48","slug":"nba-opening-night-preview-miami-heat-at-boston-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-opening-night-preview-miami-heat-at-boston-celtics-9902\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Opening Night Preview: Miami Heat at Boston Celtics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Boston Celtics
\nTuesday, 10\/26\/10, 7:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TNT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -1
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Pick
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 193
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 189.5
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Miami -110 \/ Boston -110<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Miami Heat newcomers Chris Bosh and LeBron James begin their quest for the NBA Championship<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miami heads out on the road to open the season with an exciting new-look group that includes perennial All-Stars Chris Bosh and LeBron James.\u00a0 \u201cOnce LeBron took his talents to South Beach, I think everyone got excited,\u201d Celtics head coach Doc Rivers stated.\u00a0 The Heat practiced one last time in Miami on Monday morning and then jumped on a plane to head north.\u00a0 Last season, the team dropped all three contests versus Boston and has a 15-27 overall mark in games played in Boston.\u00a0 This is the first time the Heat and Celtics have squared off on Opening Night and Miami has used the same starting line-up once in openers in franchise history.\u00a0 The squad is 45-44 ATS on the road the past two seasons.<\/p>\n

The Heat\u2019s offseason was built around the arrival of two-time league MVP LeBron James, who made his decision 110 days ago to leave Cleveland on national television.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll be ready tomorrow,\u201d said James.\u00a0 \u201cIll be ready.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be ready.\u201d\u00a0 He made have received plenty of motivation when head coach Eric Spoelstra brought in Miami\u2019s 2006 championship trophy into Monday\u2019s practice to simply remind everyone of the season\u2019s lone goal.\u00a0 Wade is still considered the leader of the team and led the Heat with 33.7 points and 8.7 assists per game against the Celtics last year.\u00a0 The talented trio will allow the team to score with anyone offensively, but the offseason was spent giving the team a defensive edge that many will be interested to see on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Boston seems to be an afterthought in the Eastern Conference and that may provide motivation for the Celtics to pull off a season-opening victory.\u00a0 \u201cAs far as the East, we\u2019re the champs,\u201d point guard Rajon Rondo stated.\u00a0 \u201cBut that\u2019s in the past.\u00a0 New season.\u00a0 We\u2019re not going to go down without a fight.\u201d\u00a0 The team signed a few frontcourt pieces during the offseason, adding Jermaine O\u2019Neal and Shaquille O\u2019Neal.\u00a0 They will be used to spell starters Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins over the course of the season.\u00a0 Boston won all three meetings last year, averaging 103.7 points per game, while holding the Heat to 97.7 points per contest.\u00a0 The team is 45-56 ATS at home over the last two campaigns.<\/p>\n

The Celtics were just a couple plays away from winning their second championship in three years last June, losing Game 7 to the Lakers 83-79 in the NBA Finals.\u00a0 Many believe that was the start of the door closing on this veteran-laden team that is getting up an age.\u00a0 Guard Ray Allen believes this opening contest is a great way for Boston to start its march toward another conference title.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s never been an opening game that has been more heavily anticipated,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThe two teams are Eastern Conference powerhouses.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to be a game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bettors will find that the Heat were 0-4 ATS on the road to finish out the 2009-10 season, while the Celtics were 9-3 ATS in their last 12 home games.\u00a0 The favorite is 12-3 ATS in the last 15 meetings.<\/p>\n

Maddux Sports has released a premium pick on this game.\u00a0 We should have another solid year betting the NBA and anyone wagering on any NBA games should be consider our NBA sports picks package.\u00a0 A great investment for the sports gambler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami Heat at Boston Celtics Tuesday, 10\/26\/10, 7:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TNT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Miami -1 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Pick Opening Total:\u00a0 193 Current Total:\u00a0 189.5 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Miami -110 \/ Boston -110 Miami heads out on the road to open the season with an exciting new-look group that includes perennial All-Stars Chris Bosh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":8699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[120,692,2896,3622,764,66,707,1555,1012],"class_list":["post-9902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-boston-celtics","tag-chris-bosh","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-eastern-conference","tag-kevin-garnett","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami-heat","tag-ray-allen","tag-shaquille-oneal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902","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=9902"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9906,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902\/revisions\/9906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}