Miami Heat +6, o/u 185 at Detroit Pistons, 8 p.m. Eastern, ESPN
by Ultimatecapper.com Staff
The Miami Heat now own home-court advantage in their Eastern Conference finals series with the Detroit Pistons, and shoot for a solid 2-0 series lead when the two teams tussle Thursday night in MoTown.
Miami stole home-court advantage in this series by taking Game 1 in Detroit Tuesday night 91-86. The Heat shot 56 % from the field, compared to the Pistons 38%, and outrebounded Detroit 49-40.
Miami was helped immensely by some unexpectedly solid play from Antoine Walker (17 points) and Gary Payton (14 pts.), and from a combined 15-of-41 shooting performance by Pistons Richard Hamilton and Chauncey Billups.
The Heat led Game 1 from the outset, scoring the first 11 points. Of course, Detroit came back, and grabbed a 5-point lead early in the 3rd quarter. But the Pistons missed their next 12 shots, Miami went on a 20-5 run, and that was it.
Game 1 stayed under the posted total of 188 by 11 points.
Detroit won the Central Division this season with the best record in the league, 64-18. Miami won the Southeast Division, but finished a full 12 games back of the Pistons in the Eastern Conference race at 52-30.
Detroit beat 8th-seeded Milwaukee in 5 games in the first round of the playoffs, then outlasted Cleveland in 7 games in the conference semis.
Miami beat Chicago in 6 games in the first round and disposed of New Jersey in 5 games in the semis.
Miami had 7 days off going into Game 1, while the Pistons, of course, had all they could handle in those 7 games with the Cavaliers, and only had one day off.
Since scoring 97 points against Cleveland in Game 2 of their 1st-round series, the Pistons have scored 77, 72, 84, 84, 79 and 86 points in their subsequent playoff games.
Miami broke the 100-point barrier each of their last 4 games in the series against New Jersey.
These two teams met in last season’s Eastern Conference finals, with Detroit prevailing in 7 games. The Heat led the series 3 games to 2, but lost Game 6 with Wade on the bench and fell late in Game 7.
The Pistons won the regular-season series between these two teams this season 3 games to 1, and only a miraculous Wade-led rally in the last meeting Feb. 12 kept it from being a sweep.
The Heat is 25-22 straight up on the road this season, 24-23 against the spread.
The Pistons are 43-6 straight up at The Palace this year, but 2 of those losses have come in the last 3 games there. The oddsmakers seem to have Detroit home games figured out; Flip’s boys are 24-24 vs. the number in MoTown this season.
Games 3 and 4 of this series will be played Saturday and Monday in Miami.
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The Ultimatecapper Pick: We'll take the heat here. Detroit seems to be struggling and until they show some dominance, we'll keep taking the points against them.
