NBA Betting Preview: San Antonio Spurs at Miami Heat

Added on Mar 13, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

Huge game on Monday night NBA action as the San Antonio Spurs travel to Miami to take on the Heat. The Spurs have the best record in the NBA and are 7 games ahead of the second place Dallas Mavericks out West. The Heat are in third place in the Eastern Conference trailing second place Chicago by 2 1/2 games and Boston by 3 games.

San Antonio Spurs at Miami Heat
March 14, 2011 5:05 PM Pacific

Credit where credit is due–the Heat faced down a 5 game losing streak and won a huge game over the Los Angeles Lakers. They followed that up by taking care of business against Memphis. That being said, we’re not ready to jump on the Miami bandwagon based on those results and particularly against an opponent of this class. San Antonio has a bigger game on deck against the Dallas Mavericks, but that’s not until Friday. There’s no reason that this will be a ‘lookahead’ spot for them with four days to regroup and prepare for Dallas. Besides, that’s a bigger game for Dallas than San Antonio and the Spurs are a confident, poised group of veterans that have produced very few poor efforts this year regardless of the scheduling situation.

San Antonio hasn’t been a very good pointspread team of late (just 3-8 ATS in their last 11 games) but they’ve kept piling up the straight up wins and some ‘marketplace correction’ was to be expected after a great ATS start to the season for the Spurs. Even after that negative ATS run San Antonio has a 37-27 overall record against the pointspread. They’re 21-10 ATS on the road to go and are tied for the best SU record away from home with Dallas at 23-9. They’re 18-12 ATS against winning teams this season though have dropped 7 of their last 10 in this situation. For a team most often associated with good defense, the Spurs have made mincemeat of potent offenses this year–against good offenses (defined as averaging 99+ PPG) San Antonio is 30-3 SU/19-13 ATS.

The Heat are still a huge money loser in most pointspread situations–not surprising for the biggest ‘public’ team in the NBA. They’ve been an especially bad investment at home where they’re just 12-10 ATS. They’ve won/covered two straight against teams over .500 but they’re still a poor play YTD against winning teams–12-16 ATS on the year, 4-9 ATS in the second half of the season. In theory, this is a big revenge spot for Miami after they were embarrassed by the Spurs 125-95 in San Antonio but Miami has lost money ATS in revenge situations this year (9-13 ATS).

At this price, the Spurs just need to get the outright win and they’ve been incredibly consistent at posting victories this season–they’ve only lost back to back games once this year and are currently on a 25-6 SU run. Dwyane Wade was just awarded custody of his sons after a protracted legal battle and that could be a distraction. Much respect to the Heat if they can win this one, but we’re taking the proven commodity plus the points.

Bet San Antonio Spurs +4 over Miami Heat