The Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks face off for the second time in as many games on Monday night in Miami.
The Heat won the first matchup on Saturday night, holding on to the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference in the process.
Atlanta and Miami are both strange cases for teams that are expected to make the playoffs, as Miami is 23rd in net rating and Atlanta is 19th.
The Heat won’t have Kyle Lowry once again due to a knee injury while Kevin Love is listed as probable.
If Atlanta loses this game and the Toronto Raptors upset the Denver Nuggets, it will fall to the No. 9 spot in the East.
Here are the odds and my best bet for this game:
Hawks vs. Heat odds, spread and total
Hawks vs. Heat prediction and pick
Saturday’s matchup finished with 226 total points, yet the total for this game is all the way up at 229, and I think that gives some value to the UNDER.
Over the Heat’s last 11 games, 10 of them have fallen short of this number, and that’s the way this team would like to play.
The Heat are 28th in the league in pace, fifth in defensive rating and just 26th in offensive rating. That’s a perfect recipe for UNDERs, and the Heat are 36-29 on UNDERs this season, the fourth best in the league.
Atlanta plays at a little faster pace (eighth in the NBA), but the Hawks have been slowed down by teams like the New York Knicks and Miami, going UNDER this number in their games against them.
The common denominator? Both teams are bottom five in the league in pace.
Go UNDER in this game.
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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.