Can The Heat End Their Three-Game Losing Streak?
Our Nuggets vs Heat Preview Includes a Best Bet!
The Denver Nuggets will travel to Miami to face the Miami Heat in an exciting rematch of last year’s Finals. This will be the second of two regular-season games between the two NBA teams.
In the first matchup, the Nuggets escaped with a 103-97 win on February 29.
Denver has won four of its last five games heading into this game. However, all five of those games were at home. Now, they’ll be on the road against Miami and start a road trip that will last until March 21.
On the other hand, the Heat have lost three consecutive games to the Mavericks, Thunder, and Wizards. The first two losses were understandable, but the last one to the Wizards wasn’t.
Can the Heat turn things around against the former champs?
Oddsmakers don’t think so. The Nuggets are sitting at -3, with the total currently at 217.5.
Check out our Nuggets vs Heat Betting Odds for this intriguing matchup.
Nuggets vs Heat 
Day/Time:
Location: Kaseya Center
Streaming: ESPN
Nuggets vs Heat Preview & Trends
While the Nuggets are 45-20 on the season, Denver has only gone 29-35-1 against the spread this NBA season. The Nuggets have also hit the Under in 14 more games than the Under and have lost 14 of their 20 games on the road this year.
On the other hand, the Heat are just 35-29 heading into this one. The difference is the Heat are 31-32-1 against the spread, which is still better than the Nuggets.
Like the Nuggets, the Heat have hit the Under plenty more times than the Under this season. At home, the Heat are also 17-14, which isn’t ideal but a winning record nonetheless.
The Nuggets have won nine of their last ten games against the Heat, including the playoff matchup last season.
Nikola Jokic Makes History
This is silly. However, Nikola Jokic became the first player in NBA history to add 35 points, 17 rebounds, 12 assists, six steals, and two blocks. No NBA player has ever put together that stat line in NBA history.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Terry Cummings, and George McGinnis were the only players in NBA history to score 35 points, grab 15 rebounds, earn ten assists, and add five steals.
Jokic’s stat line helped the Nuggets come back from 22 points down to defeat the Raptors on Monday.
The Nuggets can’t afford a start like that against the Heat, and a comeback would be much less likely against Miami.
Three-Game Losing Streak for Heat
The Miami Heat have been incredibly streaky this season. They’ve had moments where they’ve really struggled and some stretches where they’ve looked unstoppable.
Unfortunately for the Heat, they’re in the middle of a bad stretch. The Heat have lost three straight games, including an NBA matchup with the Washington Wizards.
In that game, the Heat shot 30.3% from deep and scored only ten three-pointers in the entire game.
Ultimately, every single player on the Heat struggled offensively. Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier combined to go 0-for-7 from three, while Duncan Robinson drained four threes on 13 attempts.
Meanwhile, the ball movement was lackluster, and the bench hit 11 of the 23 field goal attempts from downtown. No player even added more than four assists in that game, while Washington’s Tyus Jones earned 16 assists on his own for Washington.
Miami lost its identity. We’ll see if the Heat can find it against the Nuggets.
Will The Heat Find Offense?
The Miami Heat haven’t been dreadful defensively lately. It’s the offense that has really dipped.
Over the last three games, the Heat haven’t had a single game where they averaged 115 points per 100 possessions. The Heat have shot below a 54% effective field goal percentage in the previous two games.
In two of the last three games during the losing streak, Miami has struggled to get to the foul line and has not earned a high number of offensive rebounds.
When you combine poor shooting with limited offensive rebounds and a low amount of trips to the foul line, it’s usually a disaster in the making.
The Heat have done well on defense, limiting other teams from gaining offensive rebounds and a second chance. Miami will want to get back to earning a lot of turnovers, which they did against Washington, adding over 15%. However, in the other two games of the losing streak, the Heat earned fewer than 11%.
On the other hand, the Nuggets have been dominant offensively but have struggled a little more defensively.
The Nuggets scored 142 points against the Utah Jazz and added nearly 145 points per 100 possessions in that game. They then followed that game up with 127.6 points per 100 possessions against the Raptors.
Denver shot an effective field goal percentage of at least 60% in the last two games and has done a good job limiting turnovers lately.
The Nuggets won’t get to the foul line very often, and second chances don’t come around often. But Denver is still getting high-quality looks from the floor.
On the other hand, the Nuggets have been below average-defensively. They’re not the best at keeping teams off the glass and have only earned 12.4% of turnovers or fewer in four of the last five games.
Ultimately, we like Miami to limit turnovers but struggle on the offensive glass. However, despite a worse shooting percentage, the Heat will likely end up with more foul-shot attempts.
On the other hand, the Nuggets won’t see the foul line much, but they’ll get those higher-quality looks and sink more shots. The second-chance points on the offensive glass won’t be needed.
The Nuggets and Heat will both be in the NBA playoffs bracket. However, the Nuggets are more likely to win the championship via the NBA Championship odds.
After putting together our Nuggets vs Heat Betting Odds, we’ll take the Nuggets at -3 as our NBA picks.
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