2014 NBA Finals Game 4 - San Antonio Spurs at Miami Heat
Where: American Airlines Arena, Miami
When: Friday, June 13th at 11:05am AEST
If you followed our Game 3 NBA Finals tip you would be all smiles as San Antonio Spurs covered the line and actually won outright. They now take a 2-1 series lead and also grab the home court advantage if it goes to a game 7.
In the last NBA article you would have also noticed that I was recommending taking the team with the points throughout the rest of this series. Well there is always an exception to the rule and this line set by the bookies is one of these exceptions.
The line of -5.5 (Miami) is what I call an NBA “trap” line. This means the bookies have adjusted the line from -4.0 for the home team (in this case Miami) to -5.5 after a loss to a team that is clearly as good if not better on a “neutral” court. In a means to try and create a much more even “middle”. Since most mug punters will only go off the last game they will see value in taking Spurs again at +5.5, while a line of +3.5 or +4.5 might deter them.
We will be talking more about these betting strategies in the future, in the sports betting articles section of the website.
If we take away the first quarter in game 3, which by the way included an all-time NBA shooting record by the Spurs (who shot 75.8%), then the game was only a three point differential. I expect Miami to come out as hard as they did in the 3rd quarter where they turned the heat up on defence and held the Spurs to just 6 of 19 from the field.
We believe this game will replicate Miami’s 3rd quarter defensive efforts as opposed to the Spurs dictating the pace of play. We cannot recommend an official tip on either side with such a “fishy” line, however we can recommend a play on the total game score.
BET ON: Under 198.0 Total Game Score
