NBA: Miami Heat VS Charlotte Hornets Pick and Predictions 01/29/2023

Game: 1:10 PM ET,  Sunday, January 29th, 2023

Venue: Spectrum Center, Charlotte, North Carolina

TV:  NBA League Pass

Heat: 28-22, 8th place Eastern Conference

Hornets: 14-26, 14th place Eastern Conference

BetMGM:  Point Spread:  Heat -5.5, O/U 223.5

PointsBet: Point Spread: Heat -6, O/U 224.5

Fanduel: Point Spread: Heat -6, O/U 224

Heat: PF Caleb Martin, SF Jimmy Butler, C Bam Adebayo, PG Kyle Lowry, SG Tyler Herro

Hornets: SF Gordon Hayward, PF PJ Washington, C Mason Plumlee, PG LaMelo Ball, SG Terry Rozier

A drastic mismatch in the NBA’s Eastern Conference.  The Miami Heat started the season a little rough.  The Heat are a team that have grown accustomed to being at or near the top of Contenders for deep Eastern Conference playoff success… and even landing in the Finals is not an outrageous goal.  The Heat also have one of the NBA’s absolute best players in SF Jimmy Butler… If you LOVE basketball then you love Jimmy Butler’s game… He is a guy who can score like a lot of other guys can, but then he adds hustle, defense, and heart.  You can see the effort that creates good things for any team that Jimmy is on.  He is overlooked at the moment but he shouldn’t be.  The Heat’s rough start had a lot to do with injuries up and down the line-up… Recently they have righted the ship it seems… Lots of recent returns to the lineup has allowed them to start winning at a really productive rate.  They are in 8th place, but they are certainly not stuck there.  The Charlotte Hornets are one of the worst teams in all of basketball and they have ZERO Jimmy Butler’s on their roster.  They do have a Terry Rozier that plays hard and scores effortlessly and causes you to root for the littell guy… but man oh man!  They have a really bad roster.  At this point in the season, The Hornets are definitely STUCK in 14th place… and the rest of the season they are on a mission to DROP lower to the 15th place for the NBA Draft Lottery.  They are not very good and not invested in the idea of getting better.  They should be an easy layup for the Heat… which is why the Great Betting Opportunity in this game will be all about how many points you are willing to risk on the spread.?

The Miami Heat have won 7 of their last 10 games and are on a 3-game winning streak.  ATS they are 5-5 over the last 10.  That is the most important thing to watch because the Heat are 30th in scoring in the league… meaning even when they are winning they will struggle with BIG Spreads against bad teams.  During the win streak they failed to cover -7 points against the injury depleted Pelicans and failed to cover -8.5 points against the awful Orlando Magic.  They beat the Magic 110-105 in their last game while getting 29 points from SF Jimmy Butler and 20 points from C Bam Adebayo.  Those are the team's two stars… They will go as far as those two guys take them.

The Charlotte Hornets have won 3 of their last 10 games.  They went 4-6 ATS during that stretch. They did however win their last game against the Chicago Bulls 111-96.  The Bulls are a struggling franchise that will be working the phones hard as the trade deadline looms. In the win the Hornets got 28 points from SG Terry Rozier, 21 points & 12 rebounds from C Mason Plumlee, and a dominating 15 points, 11 rebounds, and 8 assists from PG LaMelo Ball.  The win was nice… but this is still a team with some defensively challenged starters and little to no depth.

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MIA: 28-22, 20-28-2 ATS, 22-28 O/U, 11-13 in road games.

CHA: 14-26, 21-26-3 ATS, 26-23-1 O/U, 6-16 in home games.

The Heat are 30th in scoring with 108.5 points per game, 26th in rebounds with 41.5 per game, 18th in AST/TO ratio with 1.7, and 30th in blocks with 3.0 per game.

The Hornets are 25th in scoring with 112 points per game, 5th in rebounds with 45 per game, 7th in AST/TO ratio with 1.8, and 12th in blocks per game with 5.

Our prediction for Sunday, January 29th is…. Heat 118 - Hornets 101

The Heat have TWICE as many wins as the Hornets and we are not yet at the all-star break and the Heat are only in 8th place.  The Hornets are really bad and about to face something they don’t often encounter… Good defense.  Plus the Heat are on a roll.  It all adds up to a Heat blowout. Yes, the Heat only beat the Thunder by 1 point earlier in the month… BUT the Thunder are simply better than the Hornets and that was before Jimmy Butler was back in the lineup.  This will be more akin to when the Heat beat the injury depleted Pelicans 124-98.

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The Heat are 3-10 ATS after 2 or more consecutive wins this season.
The Hornets are 1-6 ATS after 3 or more consecutive UNDERS this season.

Heat:  SF Jimmy Butler.  Jimmy Butler is not only the star of the Heat.. He is one of the best 2-way players ever.  No he doesn’t often drop 40-50 like the big scorers that amaze you, but he does often drop 22 points while preventing that many on the defensive end.

Hornets:  PG LaMelo Ball.  LaMelo is a legitimate young star in this league… He is capable of driving the offense by pushing pace and using his undeniable court vision.  When this team led the league in scoring last season LaMelo was the reason.  However they finished outside of any postseason last year because leading the league in scoring did not translate to wins.  He needs his team to win the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes more than any other single player in the league.  Otherwise he will spend the next 4-5 seasons in absolute NBA obscurity.

Heat: Erik “permanent fixture” Spoelstra

Hornets: Steve “boomerang” Clifford