Tip-off: Monday, 7:00 p.m. EDT
Line: Miami -6.5, Total: 189.5

The struggling Hawks welcome the surging Heat for a battle that could decide if Miami has home-court advantage in the second round of the playoffs.

Miami took over second place in the Eastern Conference with its 100-77 victory Sunday over the Celtics. The Heat have won 13 out of 16 and after they play Atlanta, their last remaining game is against the less-than-competitive Toronto Raptors. LeBron James (26.6 PPG) has been terrific against the Hawks this season, averaging 33.0 PPG including a 43-point outburst in a 106-85 victory on March 18. Miami would love to see the bench perform as they did Sunday, where they outscored Boston’s bench 32-12 with help from Mario Chalmers who had nine points and Joel Anthony who had seven.

This is not the basketball Atlanta wants to be playing heading into the playoffs. The Hawks have lost four in a row and are in jeopardy of dropping five straight for the first time since Feb. 8-20, 2008. The Hawks, who are ninth in the NBA, allowing just 95.8 PPG, have been playing atrocious defense. They have surrendered 110.0 PPG on 52.3% FG during the four-game skid. The Hawks last loss was an embarrassing 115-83 defeat to the horrid Wizards. Al Horford (15.6 PPG) was the only Hawks player with a strong game, scoring 21 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.

Neither team is good overall against the spread, as Miami is 36-41 ATS and Atlanta is 37-43 ATS. But Miami has had some decent road success going 22-16 ATS. One thing that has plagued the Heat all year is beating teams with winning records, as they have a 15-19 ATS record against teams above .500. Atlanta is only 16-24 ATS in home games and 13-19 ATS when revenging a loss against an opponent. The Hawks are actually worse than the Heat against winning teams, going 14-21 ATS. I like the Miami to keep rolling and march right over the struggling Hawks in a double-digit victory. The FoxSheets show two anti-Atlanta reasons to pick the Heat.

Play Against - Underdogs of 3.5 to 9.5 points (ATLANTA) - poor foul drawing team - attempting <=24 free throws/game, good shooting team - shooting >=46% on the season. (186-109 over the last 5 seasons.) (63.1%, +66.1 units. Rating = 3*).

Play Against - Underdogs (ATLANTA) - revenging a home blowout loss vs. opponent of 20 points or more against opponent off a home win by 10 points or more. (34-12 over the last 5 seasons.) (73.9%, +20.8 units. Rating = 2*).

These two highly-rated FoxSheets trends side with the Under on Monday night.

ATLANTA is 24-9 UNDER (72.7%, +14.1 Units) after 3 straight games forcing opponent to commit 14 or less turnovers this season. The average score was ATLANTA 92.8, OPPONENT 94.4 - (Rating = 3*).

MIAMI is 20-4 UNDER (83.3%, +15.6 Units) after a blowout win by 20 points or more over the last 2 seasons. The average score was MIAMI 96.9, OPPONENT 88.6 - (Rating = 3*).