Clippers vs Heat Spreads Analysis: Miami, LA Looking for Consistency

Miami Hoping to Steady the Ship

The Heat and Clippers will meet in South Beach as both NBA teams hope to get consistent availability from their stars as the season starts to take shape. Ty Lue and Erik Spoelstra have had to juggle their rotations pending who was healthy and available, which in turn has led to a mediocre start from both teams.

Betting on either of these teams has involved monitoring NBA injury reports up until tip-off. Injury management has become the primary focus for both teams and late outs have had huge impacts on the markets and the outcomes of games for both teams.

This is also a big reason why neither team has been able to meet their pre-season expectations so far either. The Heat are lingering outside the play-in picture in the East at 11-14 on the season while the Clippers are sitting 9th with a slightly more respectable 14-12 record.

The Clippers vs Heat spreads opened at 4.5-points in favor of the home team, with the full game total set at 215.5 points.

Pressure Slowly Mounting in Miami

One thing we’ve learned over the years is to never rule out the Miami Heat and their ability to find form at the right time of the season, but things feel different about this seasons outfit.

Jimmy Butler has again been in-and-out of the lineup and in his absence the team looks void of dependable star talent. Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo have had their moments but neither has shown themselves capable of being the number one option with consistency.

Kyle Lowry looks to be past his best basketball and is currently experiencing his worst shooting season since his rookie year in the league in 2006/07. When they’re all together however, there’s no denying what they’re capable of doing.

Lowry, Max Strus, Caleb Martin, Butler and Adebayo have played just 105 possessions together this season. In that time they’ve recorded a +29.3 point differential and are amongst the NBA stat leaders ranking in the 99th percentile in points per possession.

The team is just 2.5 games behind the #4 seed in the Eastern Conference and if they can get continuity in their lineups once more they have enough talent and experience to navigate their way up the standings.

Things On the Up in LA

The Clippers are finally getting healthy again themselves as they begin integrating Paul George and Kawhi Leonard back into the rotations together. Let’s dive more into our Clippers vs Heat spreads analysis.

This team is blessed with arguably the best depth in the NBA, which is why they’ve been able to stay above .500 despite playing the majority of the season without Leonard available. Now that they’re healthy we could see them move back to the top of the NBA playoff odds as we get to the midway point of the season.

The former Toronto man will again be missing in this one as he continues to avoid back-to-backs, but they will get Marcus Morris, John Wall and Luke Kennard back – all of whom missed the game against the Orlando Magic. George has said he will be available to play in this one, but we’ve seen time and again how quickly that can change between now and tip-off.

Coach Lu again has this team playing elite defense and getting two of the best defensive wings back into the rotation will only further cement their ranking in that department. Their bigger impact will come in helping this offense find rhythm, which has been a tough code to crack for Lu so far.

Miami’s defense has been susceptible to giving up plenty of looks on the perimeter so far this NBA season. They rank 29th in opponent 3-point frequency and with Morris, Kennard and possible George available for this one they’ll have plenty of spacing and shooting available in the rotation for this match up.

When facing teams who are top-5 in 3-point accuracy on offense this season the Heat are 2-3 straight up, giving up 118.8 points per game in the process. Only once did they win by more than two possessions – that came against a Golden State team that blew a 20-point lead en route to a 116-109 loss.

If George plays, this line is too high and grabbing the points on the better defense makes perfect sense even in a tough schedule spot. The fact they get three guys back who didn’t play the front end of the back-to-back will help navigate a lot of the fatigue and an Overs look is also a strong angle with how Miami performs against Western Conference opponents. This wraps our Clippers vs Heat spreads analysis. Be sure to all this information into consideration before betting on this NBA matchup.

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