Game story:
The Miami Heat went into last weekend riding a 4 game winning streak, they have since lost two straight to the Utah Jazz and LA Clippers. Miami’s record has dropped to 19-14, as they now have a chance to bounce back staying in LA to play the Lakers tonight.
The LA Lakers, in-season tournament champions, are a little banged up and sporting an even 17-17 record.
LeBron James (listed as questionable with a non-covid illness) and the Lakers are coming off a 20 point loss to the New Orleans Pelicans.
Guard D’Angelo Russell will also probably be unavailable, who is listed as doubtful with a tailbone injury.
Ex-Heat player Gabe Vincent is still out indefinitely for the Lakers following knee surgery. Vincent left Miami for the Lakers in this past offseason, but has barely played this season and has not been able to remain healthy.
He has struggled with a lingering knee injury before more recently deciding to go through with surgery on the knee.
The Miami Heat also have injury problems of their own, per usual. Jimmy Butler and Haywood Highsmith are both out, along with Caleb Martin being listed as doubtful again with an ankle injury.
Highsmith went down a couple games ago in the final minute against the Jazz with a concussion. It did not look good for the young forward, as he looked dizzy after getting up once he collided with Collin Sexton.
Highsmith has traveled back to Miami after landing in concussion protocol’s.
It has been a real shame seeing him in and out of the lineup’s for this long. Miami excelled with Highsmith as the team’s starting PF to begin the year as they went on a 7 game winning streak and won 8 of 9 games with him next to Bam Adebayo in the first unit.
Since then, he has not been regularly available and has went through multiple different injuries.
Missing all 3 of Butler, Highsmith and Martin tonight makes it tough matchup wise to go up against a guy like LeBron James.
Lakers coach Darvin Ham has even been utilizing James as the starting PG.
There aren’t many elite wing defender options left outside of those guys, and even Josh Richardson is still listed as questionable.
Richardson hasn’t played in a few games now.
Regardless of who’s available, Miami needs to recover from the overall rough shooting night against the Clippers in their last loss.
In that game, the Heat shot just 42% from the field and 32% from three.
They are the top team this year in 3P%, so the sub 40% at 32% was very out of character for the squad.
Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo and Jaime Jaquez Jr. all struggled to shoot the ball in Butler’s absence.
Herro especially was just 4/13 from the field, but was 4/8 from 3 point range.
Miami will look to get the W in another late night game at 10:00 PM ET on Bally Sports Florida.
Injury Report (at the time of this publishing):
Miami Heat:
- Josh Richardson (back) — Questionable
- Caleb Martin (ankle) — Doubtful
- Jimmy Butler (foot) — OUT
- Haywood Highsmith (concussion) — OUT
- Dru Smith (knee) — OUT
LA Lakers:
- Anthony Davis (ankle) — Probable
- Cam Reddish (groin) — Probable
- LeBron James (illness) — Questionable
- D’Angelo Russell (tailbone) — Doubtful
- Gabe Vincent (knee) — OUT
- Rui Hachimura (calf) — OUT
Projected Starting 5 (subject to change):
Miami Heat:
- Kyle Lowry, G
- Tyler Herro, G
- Jaime Jaquez Jr, F
- Kevin Love, F
- Bam Adebayo, C
LA Lakers:
- LeBron James, G/F
- Austin Reaves, G
- Taurean Prince, F
- Jarred Vanderbilt, F
- Anthony Davis, C
Betting Lines:
- Check the current odds out at FanDuel!
Broadcast Info:
- Tipoff: 10:00 PM EST
- TV: Bally Sports Sun (Eric Reid, John Crotty)
- Radio: AM 560 Sports WQAM & The HEAT Radio Network (Jason Jackson)
- Spanish Radio: WAQI 710 AM & The HEAT Spanish Radio Network (José Pañeda)
Come back to Hot Hot Hoops at game time to join our GameThread and chat about the game live with other Heat fans!
***
To check out our other content, click here.
Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Twitter/X here!
Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Instagram here!
I think we have a good a chance to win this. They don’t have any good scorers outside of LeBron, ad, and reaves. Also Russell and rui are out. They have a lot of one way players so we should be able to capitalize on that.