Heat-Lakers provide Thursday night drama

Say what you will about the Miami Heat, but at the very least they make headlines. Win or lose, laugh or cry, the Heat and their travails attract attention. And Thursday night they get another primetime television opportunity to entertain us, and provide oddsmaker.ag bettors with a chance to back 'em or fade 'em, when they host the two-time defending league champion Los Angeles Lakers (7 pm Eastern, TNT).

Also Thursday, in another interesting inter conference matchup, the Dallas Mavericks host the New York Knicks (9:30 pm Eastern, TNT). And Western Conference playoff contenders clash as the Denver Nuggets visit the Phoenix Suns (10:30 pm Eastern).

As if things weren't bad enough for the Heat after losing to Chicago on Sunday, then having their coach Twitter something that should not have left the locker room, Miami lost its fifth game in a row Tuesday night, 105-96 at home to Portland. So the Heat now sit in the three spot in the Eastern Conference standings, two games behind second-seeded Chicago and just three games ahead of fourth-seeded Orlando.

On the other side of the spectrum at the moment we have the Lakers, who won in Atlanta Tuesday night 101-87 to extend their current winning streak to eight games. So LA owns the three spot in the West, six games behind top-seeded San Antonio but only one game back of second-seeded Dallas.

Miami has also lost seven games in a row vs. the oddsmaker.ag pointspreads, while the Lakers are 7-1 ATS over their last eight games.

In the first meeting this season between these two teams the Heat beat the Lakers in LA on Christmas Day 96-80. Miami only shot 44% from the field that day, but they held the Lakers to 40.5% shooting, Kobe Bryant to 6-of-16. The Heat won outright as 3.5-point underdogs, and that game played way UNDER its oddsmaker.ag posted total of 193.

Outside of LA, Dallas is the hottest team in the league, winning 19 of its last 21 games. And both their losses in that span came by one point. So the Mavs are a bucket away from a 21-game winning streak. Big D is also 13-8 vs. the numbers during this recent run.

The Knicks, meanwhile, are 5-3 both straight-up and ATS since pulling off that big trade a couple of weeks ago. But they're only getting a portion of the projected production from that deal at the moment, as G Chauncey Billups continues to miss games with a bad quad.

The Mavs beat New York a month ago 113-97 at the Garden, but that game was played before the Knicks revamped their roster.

As of Wednesday morning the Heat, Lakers, and Celtics are all listed at +200 on oddsmaker.ag's NBA championship betting board, behind only the Spurs at +150. They're followed by, among others, the Mavs at +600, the Knicks at +1,500, the Nuggets at +10,000, and the Suns at +25,000.

And on a special oddsmaker.ag NBA prop bet a Heat vs. Lakers Finals series is priced at +220, with any other matchup listed at -270.