Oklahoma City<\/strong><\/p>\nAny residual effects of the loss of guard James Harden seem to have been mitigated.<\/p>\n
They haven\u2019t played in nearly a week though and the last time out they lost ,which has been a rarity as you can see by the record above.<\/p>\n
Harden or no Harden this team is led by forward Kevin Durant and point guard Russell Westbrook. \u00a0Durant is in his usual place among the scoring leaders and is on pace to have his most complete season ever.<\/p>\n
Right now he is hitting 52% from the floor including a career best 43% from deep.<\/p>\n
He has also inched his FT% over 90%.<\/p>\n
Westbrook\u2019s scoring numbers are down slightly but assists are up so you can\u2019t really complain. \u00a0They are a lethal duo.<\/p>\n
As one of the top offensive teams and a better than average defensive team it should be no surprise that OKC owns a very good 16-9-1 ATS record. \u00a0I love the fact that they shoot 85% from the line as a team because it means they are less likely to squander leads down the stretch of games. \u00a0I think you have to like these guys as an underdog.<\/p>\n
It has only happened once this season and it was a push.<\/p>\n
Miami<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Heat are also off to a nice start as they defend their title, but it appears expecting this collection to challenge the Bulls single season victory mark remains a bit outlandish. \u00a0This team is talented but not always in sync. \u00a0They enter the Christmas Day showcase looking to continue their current 4 game winning streak. [ad-6571516]<\/p>\n
All of those victories have been by 11 points or more against mediocre or worse opponents.<\/p>\n
Like the Thunder, the Heat are being led by the usual suspects. \u00a0Forward LeBron James leads in scoring, rebounds and assists while getting scoring support from guard Dwayne Wade and forward Chris Bosh. \u00a0Ray Allen has also been a contributor. \u00a0He has found his shooting touch even though he is not getting the volume of chances he is used to.<\/p>\n
The heat are a little this up front but that has been seldom exploited.<\/p>\n
Miami has not been a great bet this year – just 13-11 ATS. \u00a0They are alright at home (9-6) but the notoriety surrounding the team likely cuts into the value.<\/p>\n
At -3 there is good value as odds are it means they just have to win. \u00a0Of their 18 wins only one was by as few as 3 points so you are playing the odds if you want to go in that direction.<\/p>\n
Spread Pick: Oklahoma City +3
\nO\/U Pick: Over
\nScore Prediction: Oklahoma City 105 – Miami 100 <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thunder vs Heat NBA Basketball Spread\/Handicapping The Thunder are off to a terrific start to the season. They have taken great advantage of a schedule that included an unbalanced amount of home game to burst out of the gate and currently have the league\u2019s best record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":23963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[21642,2765,8667,8154,1599,57484,2381,8471,54449,55291,46924],"class_list":["post-58657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-christmas-day","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba-basketball-lines","tag-nba-basketball-odds","tag-nba-free-picks","tag-nba-hoops-predictions","tag-nba-picks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder-vs-miami-heat","tag-oklahoma-city-vs-miami","tag-thunder-vs-heat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58657"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58674,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58657\/revisions\/58674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}