How the public is betting Pacers vs. Heat first-round playoff series

The Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers open their first-round series on Tuesday, August 18th at 4:00 p.m. ET on ESPN. Jimmy Butler and T.J. Warren will play at least four more games against each other in the postseason. We’ll take a look at how the public is betting Game 1 of the series and beyond.

The Heat are favored heavily in the series at -335. The Pacers are dealing with too many injuries and are likely without C Domantas Sabonis for the entire playoffs. We saw these two teams play a few times to end the seeding round. When both teams played their starters, the Heat were dominant. Many believe that will be the case with the Heat getting 86% of the handle and 79% of the bets for this series line.

The depth is just too much for the Pacers to overcome in my eyes. The Heat have wing defenders in Jimmy Butler, Andre Iguodala and Jae Crowder, all of whom have playoff experience out the wazoo. Bam Adebayo was an All-Star this season and is one of the most versatile big men in the NBA. Outside of Myles Turner, who has dealt with some nagging injuries, the Pacers lack size in the front court. We also haven’t seen peak Victor Oladipo coming off the quad strain and working his way back to shape. Hero ball Dipo would be the only way Indy makes it out of the first round, really.

Here’s the rest of the schedule for Heat-Pacers in the first round:

Game 1: Tue, Aug 18 Miami vs. Indiana, 4 ET, TNT
Game 2: Thu, Aug 20 Miami vs. Indiana, 1 ET, ESPN
Game 3: Sat, Aug 22 Miami vs. Indiana, 3:30 ET, TNT
Game 4: Mon, Aug 24 Miami vs. Indiana, 6:30 ET, TNT
Game 5*: Wed, Aug 26 Miami vs. Indiana, TBD, TBD
Game 6*: Fri, Aug 28 Miami vs. Indiana, TBD, TBD
Game 7*: Sun, Aug 30 Miami vs. Indiana, TBD, TBD

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