![]() I ultimately keep coming up with the Nuggets to win it all the more I drill down into every angle. One other note to remember: Denver’s home-court advantage will be nullified with an extra day off between nearly every game in the series. The Heat have won six consecutive Game 1s, dating back to last season, and they won three in a row to get to the Finals in the bubble in 2020. We’ll know a lot about this series after Game 1. Will Spoelstra unleash the zone again? Well, the Nuggets will have nine days to prepare for it.ĭenver, meanwhile, can toggle between Gordon, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and even Bruce Brown on Butler. You could go with Bam Adebayo and Butler, but that will be extremely taxing on Butler to have to handle Jokić when he posts up.īutler is an outstanding defender, but he can’t get in foul trouble as he is the fulcrum of the team's offense. I wonder how the Heat plan on defending Denver’s two-man game of Jokić and Jamal Murray. Six Heat players are averaging double digits in the Boston series, including Martin and Robinson off the bench.Ĭould Miami somehow be better without Herro? Defensively, there are no weak links to hunt. As someone who fell victim to that when picking Boston against Miami, I vow not to let that happen again. You can't pick Miami in this series if you are committed to numbers and believe that the sun rises and sets with stats. There is a scenario where the Heat continues their torrid 3-point shooting, Butler has his way with Aaron Gordon and Erik Spoelstra cooks up some exotic defenses to slow down The Joker. They gave up 121 and 129 points in back-to-back games against the Suns. While first in the playoffs in offensive efficiency, the Nuggets are only seventh in defense. It should be noted that Denver is not a great defensive team. Jimmy Buckets is the man, but Caleb Martin, Gabe Vincent, Max Strus and Duncan Robinson have all caught fire from deep during this run. They missed the second-most games due to injuries and were +12500 to win the title when the playoffs started. ![]() ![]() The Heat were beat up during the regular season. Heading into the Finals, they are one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the playoffs. Nobody had them beating the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks, especially after losing their third-leading scorer, Tyler Herro, and his 20.1 points per game due to a broken right hand.īut the Heat, who were 27th in 3-point shooting during the regular season, have caught fire from deep. The Heat lost a play-in game at home to the Atlanta Hawks, then trailed Chicago late in the fourth quarter before rallying to advance. That team is, of course, the Denver Nuggets. Out of the West comes a team that's been the best in that conference since December but hasn’t gotten respect in the betting market until now. 8-seed Miami Heat, a squad on a historic run. The NBA Finals pits two fun teams to watch against one another. Pre-Finals picks by FOX Sports Betting Analyst Jason McIntyre : The best way to place a bet here is on the Nuggets to cover the spread in this game.Per FOX Sports Research, the Nuggets (+500) were the second-heaviest betting favorite heading into the NBA Finals in the past 16 seasons, behind only the Golden State Warriors against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2017-18 Finals (-1075). The Nuggets will come out just as strong to prevent the Lakers from stealing the home advantage as they have been doing in their previous series and the Nuggets will put out a strong effort all night to win game 1 on their home court. The Nuggets are also going to be rested an extra day for this game and they know how the Lakers have come out strong in every game 1 of these playoffs so far. The Lakers weren't a great road team this season, they have been playing better over the last few weeks as they were getting really hot coming into the playoffs but they are going to struggle in Denver as the Nuggets have a big home advantage with the altitude. They had one of the best home records in the NBA during the regular season and they have won every home game in these playoffs so far. The Nuggets are entering this game as the number 1 seed in the West and they were also a very good team at home all year. This is game 1 of a 7-game series between the 1st seeded Nuggets and the 7th seeded Lakers for the Western Conference finals of the NBA playoffs. The current betting odds have the Nuggets listed as a 5 point favorite in this game according to Draftkings Sportsbook.
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