Basketball Betting – Knicks Meet Heat And Lots Of Hype On Sunday

Basketball bettors who like to watch a game with a lot of hype attached to it will be more than satisfied this coming Sunday, as the Miami Heat and its "Big Three" meets up with the "Amare and ‘Melo Show" and the rest of the New York Knicks in NBA action that is slated to begin at 8 PM ET at the American Airlines Arena in Miami.

The Heat will be the favored team in basketball betting, but with all the snowbirds in South Florida, one has to wonder how many Knick fans (whether die-hard or born-again) will be in attendance.

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Basketball Betting

New York Knicks (29-26 SU, 33-20-2 ATS) at Miami Heat (42-16 SU, 28-29-1 ATS)

(Records good through Thursday’s games; check Friday and Saturday’s results)

Live at American Airlines Arena

Miami, FL

Sunday, February 27 — 8 PM ET

Basketball Betting Odds: TBA

The Charles Jay Line (estimate): Miami -6

Yeah, the Heat came into the NBA season with an almost unprecedented amount of hype, but they have done a good job, I suppose, of settling in as one of the better teams in the NBA. They just aren’t going to automatically punch a ticket to the NBA Finals as some people though they might.

As far as basketball betting is concerned, they have been no better than mediocre, and against the three teams one might imagine they would have to beat to get to the FInals (Boston, Chicago, Orlando), they are only 2-6 SU.

They have had three meetings with the Knicks, winning the first two with relative ease and dropping the third one on January 27; even though LeBron James and Dwyane Wade combined for 58 points, the heat lost straight-up as a 3.5-point favorite in basketball betting. Now we have a "new-look" Knicks team coming in with Carmelo Anthony.

Here are some of the head-to-head trends that pertain to basketball betting on this game:

· Miami has won seven of the last eight meetings SU
· Miami has covered five of the last seven meetings
· Miami has won eight of the last eleven meetings SU as the home team

As a result of the Knicks’ trade with Denver, they seem to have a very interesting bench now, though by dealing away Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler they traded two of the players they seemingly didn’t want to give up.

We have questions that all basketball bettors should ask, namely, how long will it take for the new guys – Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups in particular – to fully adapt to Mike D’Antoni’s way of doing things on offense? Or, will D’Antoni make any adjustments on his end? Will ‘Melo play defense for a change? Will he have to?

The Knicks, as you may know, have been one of the league’s best pointspread propositions on the road, chalking up a 19-7-1 ATS record in basketball betting. But of course, essentially half the rotation that built the record is gone.

Yeah, the heat hasn’t covered numbers at home (10-15-1 ATS), but one certainly cannot imagine that they wouldn’t be fully focused for this one, to the extent that they might be looking past Washington in Friday’s game. Right now, I would have to buck the trends and lean rather strongly in basketball betting toward the Heat, who figure to be a lot more cohesive, able to generate more stops and also able to control the pace

JAY’S PLAY: MIAMI BY 11

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