Brooklyn Nets @ Miami Heat -7 (-118)
American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida
December 28, 2015, 7:30PM EST
Our numbers work calls for the Heat to prevail by eight this evening. We are therefore betting on the home cover when the Nets visit American Airlines Arena tonight.
The Heat are 5-3 against the spread in their last eight out, including consecutive wins and covers versus the Pelicans and at the Magic most recently.
Brooklyn too is coming off of an upset win in Chicago and a cover versus Dallas, and has also beat the number five times in their last eight contests.
In head-to-head play, Miami has won and covered in each of the last five meetings between these teams. We expect the Heat will add another notch to their proverbial gun belt after tonight's matchup.
Miami ranks 7th by True Shooting Percentage, and 7th by Defensive Efficiency. Brooklyn is similarly consistent on both sides of the ball, ranking 26th and 25th in these respective categories.
Further, theHeat offense tends to flow especially well at home, and given the Nets particularly deficient stopping ability, we expect this observation to hold true this evening. We are also looking for Miami's top-quartile defense, anchored by Bosh and Whiteside in the middle, to keep Brooklyn's bottom-of-the-barrel offense adequately in check to secure the cover. Lay the seven points and side with the locals.
Per SportsInsights, the betting line opened at Heat -9.5 and was met with a steady flow of support for the road dogs. The two-point contraction of the spread to 7.5 coincided with waning enthusiasm for the Nets, and now only 52% of spread wagers favor Brooklyn (down from north of 60%).
Happy betting!!