Pointspread: Miami -10.5 Over/Under: 186 The Philadelphia 76ers, fresh off their first win in this series, head back to South Beach this Wednesday night for Game 5 of their first round, best-of-seven Eastern Conference playoff matchup with the Miami Heat. Game time from the American Airlines Arena is set for 7 p.m. (ET) and it will be broadcast nationally on TNT.
Philadelphia has showed tremendous guts and determination in this series, but it has only resulted in one win against Heat in the first four games. This past Sunday it came away with an 86-82 victory as a 5 ½-point home underdog after closing out the game with a 10-0 run. The 76ers covered as a 10 ½-point road underdog in Game 1, but failed to cover the spread in games two and three.
Jrue Holiday leads Philadelphia in scoring with 15.3 points a game and Elton Brand has had a productive series with 14 points and nine rebounds a game. The biggest bonus for the Sixers has been their production off the bench with players like Thaddeus Young, Lou Williams, and Evan Turner each coming up big at various times in the first four games.
Miami has only one blowout in this series, a 94-73 win as a nine-point home favorite in Game 2 and has gotten off to slow starts in each of the other three games. It needed a late fourth quarter rally in last Thursday?s 100-94 victory as a 4 ½-point road favorite to take the 3-0 lead in this series.
The Heat continue to roll behind its Big Three. LeBron James leads the team in points with 26.3 and rebounds with 10.3 a game. Wade is second in scoring with 21.3 points and Chris Bosh has averaged 19.3 points and 8.5 rebounds over the four games. The Heat have outscored Philly by an average of eight points and have a +6.75 edge in rebounds.
Sixers? head coach Doug Collins will have his team ready for this game, but the disparity in talent between the two is just too great to overcome. Miami wraps things up tonight with the win, but stick with Philly to keep things close enough to cover with the 10 ½ points.
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