The first round of the NBA Playoffs Continue today and we will see the Milwaukee Bucks travel to South Beach to take on the Miami Heat. The game is scheduled for a 7:30 pm (Eastern) start time and will be televised on TNT. Currently the Odds for the game have Miami favored by 13 points while the total sits at 199.
Analysis: Milwaukee enters the playoffs on a very bad skid, losing seven of its final nine games, with their only three wins coming over Toronto and at Oklahoma City which was resting all of its star players in a meaningless game. The Bucks are going to be relying heavily on the scoring of SG Monta Ellis who will be matched up with Dwyane Wade over the course of the series. Ellis has put up some big numbers lately. He scored 38 points against the Nuggets on Monday, and on April 12 he had 27 points, 17 assists and eight rebounds in a loss to the Hawks. Ellis is playing well offensively, but his offense is not coming in the flow of a winning team. PG Brandon Jennings will be rusty entering the series after missing two of the final five games and playing only 19.3 MPG in the three games he did suit up for. The health of C Larry Sanders is a major concern for the Bucks too. Sanders missed the past four games for Milwaukee and the club will need his shot-blocking (2.8 BPG) to have any chance at stopping Miami's star players at the rim.
The Bucks enter this series with a 4-12 SU mark (6-10 ATS) in their past 16 games, while the top-seeded Heat won each of their final eight games of the regular season, going 7-1 ATS. Miami had a magical season, at one point winning 27 straight games, but a new season starts on Sunday. The club was 3-1 SU against Milwaukee this season, but just 2-2 ATS. Miami ended the regular season with an amazing 37-2 SU record in its final 39 games. SF LeBron James has been dominant all season and is heading towards another MVP Award after averaging 26.8 PPG, 8.0 RPG, 7.3 APG and 1.7 SPG. In the season series with Milwaukee, James was pretty much unstoppable with 27.5 PPG, 7.3 APG and 8.3 RPG in the four meetings. PF Chris Bosh will provide the Heat with the most effective inside scorer in the series, and he too is coming off of a very efficient regular season in which he averaged 16.6 PPG (54% FG), 6.8 RPG and 1.4 BPG. SG Dwyane Wade’s matchup with Monta Ellis will be key in this series, but if Wade plays anything like he did the second half of the season, then he should be able to win the matchup easily. Wade averaged 21.2 PPG (52% FG), 5.1 APG and 5.0 RPG for the season and dropped 24.0 PPG (51% FG), 5.7 APG and 5.3 RPG in three games versus Milwaukee.
Pick:The Heat have been rolling all year long and I expect it to continue here vs a Milwaukee squad that really struggled down the stretch. Miami is the defending champs and they will look to make a statement with a game 1 win of at least 17 points. The Heat roll here.
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