This is a 10* on MIAMI

Milwaukee will obviously be motivated based on last year’s playoff exit at the hands of Miami. But the Bucks sure chose a tough potential path to make it to the NBA Finals. They may have to go through the Heat, Nets and Sixers to get there. They’ve infamously flamed out of the playoffs earlier than expected the last two years. There’s a lot of pressure on star player Giannis Antetokounmpo coming into this series. The Heat are once again peaking at the right time. They won 12 of their final 16 regular season games to move up to the six seed. Yes, one of the losses did come to the Bucks. But now it’s the playoffs and that’s what this team (meaning the Heat) are built for. They have a top 10 defense and held Milwaukee to 32.7% shooting on three-point attempts in last year’s series. They also have a blueprint to stop Giannis. Eric Spoelstra really outcoached Mike Budenholzer last year. Miami is 15-5 ATS L20 playoff games. The reason they got off to the slow start this year was likely to do to such a short period of time off between seasons. Jimmy Butler’s numbers ended up being here this year compared to last. He and Bam Adebayo are the keys, but we also think some of the Heat’s perimeter shooters are going to knock down more threes than usual. Tyler Herro has been cold since returning from injury. That can change in a hurry. The Bucks have only covered one of their last seven games. Play on MIAMI

AAA