Miami Heat vs Golden State Warriors Predictions & Betting Tips & Odds

East meets West in the biggest game of the night in the NBA as the Miami Heat continue their road trip and head to Chase Center to take on the defending champions Golden State Warriors. Catch the game live from 10 pm on NBA TV.

This will be a 2nd night of a back-to-back for the Heat who are coming off a 119-98 win over the Portland which snapped a 4-game win streak by the Blazers. Miami got double-digit points from all 5 starters and none of them played more than 29 minutes, so fatigue shouldn’t be an issue here. Damian Lillard suffered an injury mid-way through the 3rd quarter and from that point on Miami was on cruise control the rest of the way. The Heat also impressed with their shooting in the win connecting on 15 of 38 attempts.

Tonight’s game should be a bit more challenging as they are going up against a team that’s beaten them in 11 of the last 16 meetings. Miami has been successful when it comes to covering the line though, they are 6-2 ATS in the last 8 meetings and tonight the oddsmakers have them as 7.5 point underdogs which is not something we see often for Eric Spoelstra’s team.

The defending champions have exchanged wins and losses over their first 4 games of the season. They are coming off a 29-point loss at the hands of the Phoenix Suns, in a game in which Klay Thompson was ejected in the 3rd quarter. After that the Warriors just couldn’t hang with the high paced Suns offense and they were outscored by 23 points in the 2nd half. Stephen Curry had 21 points on the night, far below what we saw in the first 3 games of the season. It’s a good bounce back opportunity tonight though, Golden State is a lot more comfortable in home games and their record of 15-2 SU over the last 17 games proves that. They’ve beaten the Heat 7 times in the last 8 played at Chase Center and with a rested Klay Thompson they are heavy favorites to get back on track tonight.

Even though Miami is just 2-3 on the season, this is pretty much the same old team from last year and I’m not ready to just count them out here. This team has a habit of playing the best when the stakes are the highest and it doesn’t get higher in the regular season than when you play the defending champions. Give me Miami to cover on the road here.

We are only 5 games into the new season, but we can already tell what Miami’s calling card will be this year. To nobody’s surprise this team relies heavily on defense to win games, so far they’ve held two opponents under 100 points. Slowing down the tempo might be necessary for them, they’ve had trouble scoring in almost every single game this season.

Against a high-paced Warriors squad I can’t see them going blow for blow as the game can easily get out of hand if they don’t keep things under control. The last 10 meetings have averaged 222.7 points per game, and even if Golden State’s defense has been below par in the first 4 games they have a really solid opportunity to get those numbers down a bit. The under has cashed 4 times in the Warriors’ last 5 games against Eastern Conference teams. For Miami that has happened in 6 of their last 9 games overall, so I think backing the under is our best bet here.

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