It required a 15-3 season ending run for the Miami Heat to get a 2-seed, stealing it away from the Boston Celtics at the very end of the NBA season. In the eyes of many, the Heat underachieved their NBA Predictions , finishing second in the Eastern Conference behind the Chicago Bulls. With the 2011 NBA playoffs beginning today, the Heat have a chance to prove themselves as they take on the 7-seed Seventy-Sixers in a best of seven series with Game-1 at American Airlines Arena in Miami (3:30 pm ET). At -2000 (20/1) odds, the Heat are big favorites to win this series while Philadelphia backers are getting +1200 odds to pull a series upset.
For today's game-1, most sports shops are listing the Heat as 10 1/2-chalk favorites with a 189 1/2 total. Seventy-Sixers backers are getting +525 on the offshore moneyline for a SU win while the price of a SU Heat wager is -725.
Miami swept the season series versus Philly winning all three games by an average of 10 points. Over the last two seasons, the Heat have won SU all seven games played between the teams and have gone 4-3 ATS. The game score has gone OVER in four of the seven games.
Philadelphia could have entered the playoffs with a better seed but slumped losing five of their last six games. They enter today's game with a two game losing streak. The Sixers have been awful ATS of late disappointing backers losing six in a row. One trend that's encouraging is in totals betting. Under bettors have been big winners in six straight Sixers games and in eight of the last 10.
I don't see any NBA Predictions surprises in store for the Heat in this one. It should be business as usual in this series, but of course that's not good news for the Sixers. Worst case scenario I see Miami losing one game in the series but it won't be today. Heat win big at home.
