Boston at Miami
Time: 7:35 PM ET, Jan 21, 2014
Spread: MIA -10
Total: 198
Betting odds courtesy of Bovada
The Boston Celtics had a surprising start to the 2013-14 season, but as losers of nine of its past 10, the C’s are just hoping to get back in the win column, now at 14-28 on the season. Traveling to South Beach probably won’t help any, with NBA oddsmakers at Bovada favoring the home team by 10-points over Brad Steven’s Celtics.
The Miami Heat have had its own struggles lately. The team lost three straight to poor opponents (New York, Brooklyn and Washington) before rebounding with back-to-back wins over Philly and Charlotte. The club dropped its last game then to Atlanta 121-114 despite 30 points from LeBron James.
Ray Allen got the start over Dwyane Wade, who is nursing injuries, and made the most of it by hitting all five of his field goals for 14 points in 36 minutes. Mario Chalmers also helped pick up the slack by hitting 6-of-12 from the floor.
The Heat are going to need continued extra contributions from its role players while Wade recovers. Chris Bosh, in particular, must play more assertively. He did that in the loss to the Hawks by attempting 18 field goals, but he connected on just seven.
The Celtics traded away the team’s third-leading scorer in Jordan Crawford and this is a team with very few good offensive options. Jeff Green leads the team in scoring, but averages under 16 points per game. Defensive stopper Avery Bradley has assumed a much larger scoring role, but some of that energy can no longer be spent on defense. All signs point towards the Celtics playing its way into a high lottery pick where it will almost certainly look to draft a scorer, and there are plenty to be had.
Boston Trends: OVER 5-0 in last 5 vs teams with winning SU records; 1-7 ATS in last 8 Tuesday games; 2-11 ATS in last 13 when opponent scores 100 or more in previous game.
Miami Trends: OVER 5-1 in last 6 following SU loss; OVER 5-1 in last 6 home games vs team with road winning percentage under .400; OVER 5-1 in last 6 on 0 days rest.
Head-to-head: Celtics 4-0 ATS in last 4 meetings; OVER 22-6 in last 28 in Miami; OVER 16-5 in last 21 meetings.
