NBA Playoff Odds: The Indiana Pacers have the home court advantage in the Eastern Conference Finals but it is the Miami Heat who are heavily favored to win the series. The Miami Heat are the two-time defending NBA champions and not many people believe the Indiana Pacers can beat them. The Miami Heat opened up as more than a 3-1 favorite to win the series even with the first two games of the series at Indiana. Here is a look at the matchup and NBA playoff predictions.
Miami Heat vs. Indiana Pacers Series
The Indiana Pacers have held their own pretty well recently against the Miami Heat, splitting the last ten games. Not many teams match up well against the Miami Heat but the Indiana Pacers do. Whether that means anything in the playoffs is another story. It is also worth noting that five of the last seven meetings in the regular season went under the total. The two teams split their four regular season meetings this year. The teams met in 2012 in the conference semifinals and the Miami Heat won in six games. They played last year in the Eastern Conference Finals and the Miami Heat won in seven games.
Roy Hibbert
When Hibbert plays well and dominates on both ends of the floor the Indiana Pacers win games. When he doesn’t play well they lose. It is oftentimes that simple. And that is also the case against the Miami Heat. The Indiana Pacers are 5-0 in this year’s playoffs when he scores in double digits.
Matchups
There are some interesting matchups in this series but you have to start with Dwyane Wade against Lance Stephenson. These two have an intense dislike for one another so it won’t be a surprise to see them both getting technical fouls in this series. Stephenson led the NBA in triple doubles during the season and he is going to be very important in this series against Wade, who
is the better player when healthy. He is averaging 17.9 points per game in this year’s playoffs. The other big matchup has Paul George against LeBron James and for the Indiana Pacers to win this series then George has to keep the matchup somewhat close.
NBA Playoff Predictions
It is hard to see how the Indiana Pacers win this series. They struggled against inferior teams in the Atlanta Hawks and Washington Wizards and now they get the league’s best team. I look for the Miami Heat to win this in 5 or 6 games.
