Originally posted on 02/02/2011:

Heat +2 LOCKED (x5)

I am rolling with the Heat tomorrow who will be playing the Magic on the road. The Heat and that Magic have already played twice this year. The Heat crushed Orlando 96-70 in the first meeting in Miami. The Magic then hosted the Heat and beat them by 9. Big thing here is that both games were pre-trade for Orlando.

The Heat are coming into this game with some confidence having won three games in a row, vs DET @OKC and vs Clev. They didn't have Wade or Bosh vs Detroit and beat them by 1. They then got the big 3 back for OKC and beat them by 5 on the road which was their second biggest road win this year and they then crushed Clev by 27 points. The Big 3 have been very effective since reuniting going off for 75 @OKC and 68 vs Cleveland.

The Big 3 is going to have a field day tomorrow. This is a HUGE mismatch for Orlando. Brandon Bass is OUT for Orlando which means the Magic have no true PF/C on the roster other than Howard. The only backup C/PF they have is Malik Allen who plays very soft is questionable with a knee injury and he is really bad to begin with. This means the Magic lineup will be Nelson PG, Q RICH SG, J RICH SF, Turkoglu PF, Howard C. Wade will toy with Q RICH. J RICH has no shot of stopping LeBron. And the biggest mismatch is going to be Turkoglu who is a true SF trying to stop Bosh. There will be constant mismatches on the floor and the Magic won't be able to double team anyone because even if you double LeBron then you got Wade 1 on or Bosh 1 on 1 etc. I expect 75 points minimum from the Big 3 tomorrow. Mike Miller, Chalmers, Jones and House should hit some 3's tomorrow vs Orlando. Joel Anthony should be a presence defensively and on the offensive boards as he has been a lot lately. He even did a decent job on Amare and should be able to contain Howard better than most players. Joel Anthony is averaging over 2 blocks a game his last 7 games. He had 5 blocks @ OKC in only 27 minutes. Mike Miller has been a force on the glass averaging 9 rebounds a game since getting significant minutes.

Brandon Bass was huge for Orlando in their win vs Miami. He was 8-13 from the field and hit 8 free throws for 24 points. He will not be playing tomorrow night. The Magic have been really struggling lately and have had some really terrible defense for stretches through games. They lost @MEM despite having a big lead. They lost @CHI despite leading at half by 5. They even lost to Detroit at home by 7 points. They are just 3-3 their last 6 games. Their bench is really hurting right now with JJ Reddick out as well. The bench last game was Ryan Anderson, Arenas, Q RICH, and Duhon. All those guys are basically guards and they all do the same thing, shoot 3's. This team is just not that good right now honestly. I believe Heat should be favored by about 3 points in this game. The odds of Orlando hitting all those 3's is highly unlikely considering Miami is ranked #1 defensively vs 3 pointers. Howard will get his points but it won't be enough just like it wasn't enough vs Chicago. He scored 40 points and grabbed 15 rebounds and still lost by 9.

Another thing on this game. When Dwight Howard is not in the game, the Magic will have ZERO shot blockers. The Magic will have to take him out eventually but Wade or James is ALWAYS in the game. Usually Magic take out Dwight beginning of 2nd and 4th. Heat take out Wade end of 1st and put him back in the 2nd or do the same thing but with LeBron. When Howard is out they are going to drive to the basket constantly and either get fouled or finish pretty easily. Also if Howard gets in foul trouble, Magic are all but done. Even if Howard does play the entire game, by the 4th quarter he will probably be gassed and he won't be effective enough late to pull off the win. He is only shooting 59% FT's which could really hurt them. Orlando is the 2nd worst free throw shooting team in the NBA, that could prove very costly if this game goes down to the wire.

In the last game in Orlando, the Heat only shot 41% FG, 22% 3PT and were outrebounded but despite all of that the Heat came back from down double digits to take the lead in the 4th quarter by 1 with just 6 minutes left. The Heat at the time were playing terribly coming off a home loss to Indiana. I think if the Heat could hang with the Magic at that time when they were playing poorly that they should be able to win this game now that the Magic are playing much worse and the Heat are playing much better. The Heat have had several games lately shooting above 40% from 3's, despite only shooting 40% from the field at the time vs Orlando in that prior game. Orlando has given up 38.6% from 3's the last 3 games so I expect the Heat to shoot fairly well from the outside.

Line opened up Heat +2.5 and the early money has already pounded it down to +1.5 some places (bookmaker being one). Take into mind that the original line last game in Orlando was -4 and quickly got pounded up to -5.5. So this line actually opened up 1.5 points lower and moved in the opposite direction a full point in a very short time frame the day before the game.

Wow, I am not sure a better group of referees could have been picked out for this Heat/Magic team.

The head referee tonight is Bill Spooner. He is the #6 road ref (out of 65) in the NBA at 23-16 ATS for road teams. His home team W/L SU is almost close to even which is very rare at 21-18.

Derrick Collins is also reffing and he is the #2 road ref with a 23-12-3 ATS for the road team.

Scott wall also slightly favors road teams with a 17-16 ATS for road teams. It's really rare to have two of the top 10 refs in the NBA favoring the road teams. The refs combined are 67-45-3 (60%) for road teams ATS.

Quotes/tidbigs about this game,

To LeBron, facing Orlando seemed like a much bigger deal.
"Can't just sit here and say it's any old game," James said. "Because it's not."

“And being an Orlando team that basically said a lot of things about us in the offseason, that definitely adds a little bit to the fire.”

Van Gundy said Brandon Bass is out Thursday and could miss the next five games with a sprained left ankle. Forward Malik Allen still hasn't played since spraining his left ankle Dec. 20 and J.J. Redick took it light in practice Wednesday with a sore left shoulder. Even reserve forward Earl Clark was sent home with a high fever.