Orlando Magic at Miami Heat Betting Odds


Opening Line: Magic -3 / Heat +3 O/U 187

Time: 7 PM EST Thursday March 18, 2010 on TNT

Tonight in a match up for Sunshine State bragging rights the Miami Heat host the Orlando Magic. The Magic are one of the hottest teams in the league, as they are coming off a win and are 9-1 in their last 10 games. The Heat lost their last game, but are still 6-4 in their last 10 games.

Miami needs to keep winning to move up in the East so they do not have to play Orlando or Cleveland in the 1st round of the playoffs, as they are currently in the 7th position .5 of a game back of 6th place Charlotte and 1 game ahead of 8th place Toronto.

If the season were to end today tonight's match up with be the 1st round playoff match up.

This season the Heat are 20-15 at home and 34-34 ATS and the Magic are 20-14 on the road and 34-30-4 ATS.

In their last games the Magic looked impressive in beating the San Antonio Spurs 110-84 last night while the Heat were not so lucky against the Spurs losing to them 83-78 on Tuesday night.

Even though the Heat are pretty thin inside and you would think Dwight Howard (18.6 ppg 13.1 rpg) would just feast inside Miami C Jermaine O'Neal (13.6 ppg 7.2 rpg) has played solid D against him this season holding him to an average of 12 ppg and 11.7 rpg in 3 games.

Vince Carter (16.6 ppg) had struggled most of the season, but he has been on fire recently averaging 19 ppg on 54.6% in Orlando's last 10 games.

The Heat have to play good perimeter defense and not allow the Magic to bomb away from deep.

Dwayne Wade (26.5 ppg) has averaged 30.3 ppg in his last 8 games, but against the Magic this season he has only averaged 23.3 ppg on 39.3% shooting. He will need help in the scoring department tonight.

Michael Beasley (15.2 ppg) is recently back from injury and the Heat will need some offense from him tonight. In his first game back he only had 7 points in Tuesday night's loss and while he did average 18.5 ppg and 10 rpg in his first 2 games against the Magic he only had 1 points and 2 rebounds in their last loss Orlando.

Betting Trends

Orlando is 5-2 ATS in their last 7 games as a road favorite and has an Under record of 15-6 in their last 21 road games.

Miami is 5-1 ATS in their last 6 home games, 1-6 ATS in their last 7 games as an underdog of 0.5-4.5, and has an Under record of 4-0 in their last 4 games as an underdog of 0.5-4.5.


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NBA Handicapping

Dallas Mavericks at Miami Heat Odds 6-12
The Mavs are up 3-2 in this series heading to South Beach and for the Heat to force Game 7 they will have to play better in the 4th quarter, especially LeBron James. 5Dimes has the hometown Heat as 5-point favorites in Game 6 with a total of 187.

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