Miami at San Antonio

The Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs have survived the rigors of a long season, and three rounds of playoffs to meet in an encore performance in the NBA Finals. This year, unlike last, the Spurs will open the series with the home court advantage. Last season the Spurs led 3-2 in the series, had Miami on the ropes in Game Six, leading by five with :28 seconds left only to lose, and lost the series in Game Seven. Taking a look at the 67 times teams have opened up the NBA Finals, we see a huge bias in Game One for the home team as they have put together a 50-17 straight up record. And with the odds here posted at less than 2-1, we certainly can see the value here. The Spurs have also been great in a series opener as they bring a streak of 10 consecutive Game One wins into this. Miami does not look to be as good this season as they were a year ago, but anytime you have LeBron James on the court, you have to respect this team. One edge that the Spurs may have is the defensive work that has been done on James by Kawhi Leonard. The two meetings this season were rather eyeopening as the Heat scored just 87.9 points per 100 possessions with Leonard on the court, and 114.5 when he sat. Leonard will get a lot of minutes as it is the playoffs, so he could be responsible for holding the Heat down in the scoring column. The NBA Finals tend to be lower scoring in Game One and Two as over the last 18 years (considering just games 1-4, so every year has an entry), Game One has been the lowest scoring game six times, Game Two six times, while Games Three and Four total just six between them. Last year we saw these teams battle defensively in a Game One that saw just 180 total points scored, the lowest of the entire seven game series. These teams are fairly evenly matched, and I expect a chess match early as the offenses try and see where they can attack and have success while the defenses come out playing strong to impose their will on the game. I see an early game tendency for the defenses to win out, as well as the game as a whole, much the same as we saw a year ago. The UNDER has prevailed in 11 of the last 16 meetings between these clubs. I am making three selections in this game. Play on San Antonio on the money line, the first half UNDER, as well as the full game UNDER.