Miami won the regular season series, 3-1 SU against the Hornets. Miami has ruled out Nikola Jovic and Dru Smith for tonight’s play-in game as well. These are two teams heading in opposite directions as the Heat stumbled their way into the postseason, while the Hornets have been playing their best basketball when it mattered most, despite an easy second-half schedule. Miami has struggled on the road this season, 17-24 SU, while the Hornets are 14-7 ATS as home favorites and the line continues to move in their favor.

Caesar’s. With the Hornets emergence over the second half of the season, Miles Bridges role has quietly shrunk. The wing is under this line in 24 of the last 37 games he’s played with both Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball. Over that same span, his usage has fallen to 20.7% - it had been 23.3% previously. And newcomer Coby White has dominated the non-Lamelo Ball minutes which used to be a focal point for Bridges. Despite the Heat’s fast paced regular season, I expect a toned down playoff atmosphere tonight. And Miami’s defensive weakness of allowing pull-up shooting is more of the Hornets other scorer’s forte than Bridges’. I’d bet this with confidence to under 17.5.

Coby White only averaged 19 minutes over 21 games after the Hornets acquired him from the Bulls. However, he still averaged 15.6 points. His role is to come off the bench jacking up shots. Despite his limited playing time, he averaged 11.0 shot attempts, 5.2 of which came from behind the arc, and 4.1 free throws a game. In two meetings with the Heat as a member of the Hornets, White scored 13 and 24 points. I like his chances of scoring at least 13 points against them again.

Brandon Miller had an excellent regular season in which he averaged 20.2 points per game. At home, he averaged 21.2 points. He averaged at least 3.1 three-pointers for the second straight season, and he made 38.3% of his shots from behind the arc. Although teams tend to slow down some in the playoffs, the Heat played at the fastest pace in the league this season, so this is still a favorable matchup. I expect Miller to play a lot in this win or go home game, making the over appealing.

The Miami Heat have been one of the success stories of Adam Silver implementing the play-in. They went all the way to the NBA Finals just three years ago after securing the eighth seed. A season ago they won two road games in the play-in last year against Atlanta and Chicago. Now they are back in the same tenth spot, playing their third straight play-in road game. That’s not sustainable on continuing to have success. Charlotte after losing the first three matchups to the Heat, blew them out in the final meeting by thirty points. Look for the young team in the Hornets to take out the veteran Heat. Lay the number.

Tyler Herro sat out Friday with foot soreness and then played just 22 minutes in Sunday's rout of the Hawks. Miami was saving Herro for Tuesday's play-in game at Charlotte. Herro put up 33 points and 20 points in two meetings with the Hornets last month, going 9 of 12 from deep and 12 of 12 from the foul line combined. The Heat will need a huge game from Herro to pull off the upset, so I'm betting on Erik Spoelstra giving Herro 35-plus minutes.