Old guard confronts new blood
Betting tips 
/ Matthew Reid / 12 January 2012 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market
We know that barring injury the Clippers will be a playoff team as they simply have too much talent, but the question is how good will they be?
With eight All-Stars on display, Matt Reid believes that when Miami meet the LA Clippers the match is bound to be a test of strength between an established power and a team with plenty of promise and playoff ambition.
LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Dwayne Wade (Heat) and Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, Chauncey Billups, Caron Butler, Mo Williams (Clippers) are the eight past and present All-Stars who will feature in this match, ensuring plenty of highlights and a sell-out Staples Center crowd.
The Heat showed last year that combining three established stars can result in success, but the Clippers are struggling slightly to find their identity with all their new additions at the beginning of this season.
We know that barring injury the Clippers will be a playoff team as they simply have too much talent, but the question is how good will they be? Currently with a 4-3 record and having dropped games to playoff teams in Chicago, San Antonio & Portland, they have taken care of the teams they should beat but at times have been unconvincing in doing so. This is not too surprising given their roster upheaval and the shortened training camp teams had to build cohesion, but with only 66 games in the season they cannot wait to long to pull things together.
You can expect big numbers from Wade, James and Griffin in this match but the game will likely be decided by those players who can step up outside of these superstars. Miami are playing their fourth game of a road trip and two of these matches have gone to overtime (including yesterday's loss to Golden State) meaning fatigue could be a factor. The Heat bench is solid but they do not have the overall depth of LA and with both teams playing their second game in as many nights the home crowd should give LA an edge in finishing the game strongly.
At some stage the Clippers must prove that they can beat proven playoff teams and the Heat give them the perfect opportunity to do so. On the back of a poor game look for Chris Paul to be aggressive and for the rest of the team to fall in line behind him.
There won't be many times this year that you will have the chance to back a full strength Clippers line-up as underdogs at home, and to me they are over the odds in this matchup.
Take the value and back the Clippers at around 2.7.
