The top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks will try to get their first win of their Eastern Conference semifinals series against the Miami Heat on Wednesday, Sept. 2nd, 2020.

After running away with the game in the first quarter, the battle lines were redrawn seemingly minutes later as the Bucks’ grip on Game 1 against the Heat slipped away starting after halftime.

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The Bucks, who dropped their very first game against the Orlando Magic in their first-round playoff series, would then go on to win the remaining games by double digits, covering in every single remaining contest.

Could we primed for a repeat of the same story?

Here’s why it pays to take the underdog Heat to continue their quietly impressive playoff run. But before we get going, take a look at our Pacers vs. Heat Game 4 betting preview from last week. We crushed it! Predicting the favorite to cover and the total to stay UNDER.

A Balanced Battleplan

The Heat, unlike the Magic, are a balanced squad. The Bucks were facing a very young and very shallow Magic team whose offense was sporadic and unreliable. More based on athleticism and youth, the Magic were no match for the Bucks’ ultra-fast pace, star power, and combined ability to stretch the floor.

Those attributes basically made it impossible for the Magic, who shot a historically awful percentage from the field in Game 2, from crawling back into the contest. Bettors looking for premium picks were siding against the public in Game 2.

The Heat are the perfect counterbalance to this formula. They have shooters at almost every position, they have vets in critical positions, like Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic, and they have the right amount of youth to keep up the pace and provide timely scoring.

Another challenge for the Bucks is the fact that they do not have a scorer that can execute reliably in the halfcourt. Butler may be one of the league’s best isolation scorers, and his midrange game and jump shot make him extremely hard to contain.

As observed in the waning minutes of Game 1, smarter bettor could see he completely took the game over with a dazzling display of shooting under duress. It does remain to be seen if such an elite-level performance can be repeated throughout the series.

But as it happened against the Kawhi Leonard-led Toronto Raptors in 2019, the Bucks have struggled against tough-minded scorers with dominant midrange games.

They are very different in several ways, but there are parallels between the ways Butler and Leonard score, and if the Bucks can’t wrangle Butler and company in, it will be a short series.

The Numbers That Really Matter

With a narrative established, it’s easy to better understand the numbers that really matter. The Heat are a 4.5-point underdog, and the total is set at 221, a modest total for a series that is expected to move with a purpose every single game.

Most people, including NBA handicappers, expect a correction when it comes to Game 2s, but there is something special about the NBA bubble. We really like the Heat to continue locking down Giannis Antetokounmpo, and we think they can sustain the onslaught, with Butler continuing to play with a chip on his shoulder.

This is a Heat team with a lot of depth, just the right amount of youth, superior coaching, and the right level of fearlessness you need to knock off a favored opponent.

Take Miami +4.5, but we are staying away from the total.