Miami Heat – Los Angeles Clippers Prediction & Odds
Game Details
- Miami Heat @ Los Angeles Clippers
- NBA regular season
- Date: 11/11/2021
- Start time: 10:30 PM ET
- STAPLES Center, Los Angeles
Rest and health are helping the home team
The 6-4 Los Angeles Clippers are in a strong spot on Thursday evening. They are hosting a visiting Miami team that has a 7-4 record but went through hell on Wednesday evening.
The Heat did play the LA Lakers in the same arena they will play on Thursday, but they ended up losing in overtime. Going into last night’s game, Miami had multiple questionable players due to minor injuries – including star center Bam Adebayo -, but everyone ended up playing.
Sadly, just twelve minutes in the Heat lost their top player, Jimmy Butler to an ankle sprain. Head coach Erik Spoelstra didn’t commit to Butler’s status for Wednesday’s game, but based on how early we are in the season, we would be surprised if the Heat risked reaggravating Butler’s injury by playing him.
High minutes on Wednesday for Miami
Besides the injury to their top player, Miami also had to play their rotation extremely high minutes due to Butler not being available. Here is the list of their key players and the minutes they logged on Wednesday night:
- Kyle Lowry – 47 minutes
- Duncan Robinson – 45 minutes
- Tyler Herro – 42 minutes
- J. Tucker – 38 minutes
- Bam Adebayo (who still has a nagging injury) – 34 minutes
Based on the difficulty of the spot and this Heat squad being seriously banged up, it is possible that the Heat may end up sitting either/or Lowry and Adebayo. Lowry is 35 years old and it has been years since clocked 47 minutes in a basketball game.
Miami Heat – Los Angeles Clippers Odds
LA looking like a strong contender early in the year
We are on the Clippers bandwagon a few weeks in. Paul George is delivering an MVP-level season averaging 26.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 5.4 assists, plus a whopping 2.5 steals per game. This team is still not an offensive juggernaut as they don’t have too many bona fide scorers besides George, but defensively LA ranks 3rd in points per possession allowed, only giving up 102.6 points per 100 possessions.
If we look at the team’s scoring heat map on the offensive end, it is not too difficult to see the spot where LA can cause trouble against Miami. The Clippers are putting up over 41% of all their shots from downtown, while Miami is allowing the highest frequency of 3-pt shots in the entire league at 44.5% on average.
The Clippers are also known for their strong presence in the paint and under the rim, which could be an issue for the Heat, especially if Adebayo is unable to go. Even with their franchise center active, the Heat have allowed an uncharacteristically high field goal percentage to opposing teams in the paint at 68.4%. This is the third-worst mark in the entire NBA.
Pick: Los Angeles Clippers –3.5 –110 (1.91x) Bet365
While the LA Clippers are far from perfect, they are grading nearly as good as Miami so far and rest and health will be on their side on Thursday. Besides this being a back-to-back, this is also the Heat’s third game in four nights and the fourth game in six nights for Miami. This current road trip for the Heat included a game in Denver as well, where the elevation makes the jobs of the road teams even more difficult going forward. Lay the points with LA and hope that the Heat will sit a few of their key players here!
Note: We would play the Clippers at -4 or better in case all the Heat players will be available. If Jimmy Butler is indeed out as expected, we would play the Clippers at -4.5 or better. If there are other players on the Heat injury report besides Butler, we would play this at -6 or better.
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