Game story:
After a crushing night that featured the Miami Heat blow a fourth quarter lead to the Philadelphia 76ers, the team heads on the road looking to bounce back. Miami fell to 42-34 on the season and are back in the seventh seed. The next two road games, starting tonight against the Houston Rockets and then on Sunday in Indiana against the Pacers, will be crucial to avoid the play-in.
The Heat could hold their own fate if they can find a way to handle business this weekend. If not, they may have a difficult challenge ahead in trying to take down that 76ers team in the play-in round.
Reinforcements are on the way, as Tyler Herro is expected to return to the lineup tonight against the Rockets, per Shams.
Herro has traveled with the team for this trip and could add some much needed fire power to close out this important stretch of regular season games. It is unclear if he will be slotted in as the starter immediately or if coach Erik Spoelstra will ease him back in a bench role. Regardless, this update is very encouraging.
The Rockets are also coming off a loss last night, and will host Miami in a back-to-back set of their own. They lost to the Golden State Warriors yesterday evening.
Neither injury reports for the Heat and Rockets have been released yet, but Houston will be without their franchise big man Alperen Sengun. He is out for the remainder of the season with an injury.
A lot of the scouting report will surely he focused on the wing trio of Fred VanVleet, Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks. All three are capable of filling it up offensively for the Rockets.
The only expected question mark for the Heat’s injury report is the status of Terry Rozier. He has been on an impressive individual run offensively after finally getting acclimated to the team, but he went down with what appeared to be a knee contusion at the end of last night’s game. The injury took place on the final possession and he was noticeably limping.
The Heat have not announced anything yet in regards to Rozier’s status.
Injury Report (at the time of this publishing):
Miami Heat:
- NOT YET SUBMITTED.
Houston Rockets:
- NOT YET SUBMITTED.
Projected Starting 5 (subject to change):
Miami Heat:
- Terry Rozier, G
- Tyler Herro, G
- Jimmy Butler, F
- Nikola Jovic, F
- Bam Adebayo, C
Houston Rockets:
- Fred VanVleet, G
- Jalen Green, G
- Dillon Brooks, F
- Amen Thompson, F
- Jabari Smith Jr, C
Betting Lines:
- Check the current odds out at FanDuel!
Broadcast Info:
- Tipoff: 8:00 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)
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Wonder what the chemistry will be with the rest of the team. Is he coming as a starter or from the bench either way with minutes restriction in the 1st half to ease him in or load him up?
he has 6th man written all over him
welcome back ty we could use your 20 pts a game
Especially if he is clutch. It’s actually been awhile since we saw Ty in an important game. I remember in his first two seasons, he used to be pretty effective later In games when the pressure is higher. Players who can score right at the time the Heat went into that drought, well that is pretty obviously in short supply now. Jimmy used to do all the heavy lifting. Now it has to be more of a shared burden. That’s not so bad because we never had too many places to turn in the clutch before and now we have another player who can handle the pressure in Rozier. If Ty can also help at the end of the game we should be able to grind out more games at the end and not lose heartbreakers like last night.
only thing at the end of games they target him
True, but I am trying to be optimistic. In all honesty, it was better when Jimmy could do half our scoring in crunch time. Seems like those days are gone. In fact, if we had 2023 Jimmy, I believe we are a better team than last year. When all is said and done, that could be the story of this year.
when we need a bucket at end of game terrys the only guy i trust