After a crushing loss due to a late game blunder by coach Erik Spoelstra, the Miami Heat are hoping to bounce back against the Indiana Pacers. It will be the first of a two-game set this weekend against a Pacers squad that has had struggles of their own this season. They come in sporting a 5-6 record, just .5 games ahead of the Heat in the East standings.
Last year, Miami lost the season series 2-1 against Indiana, who made strides in becoming a contender in this league. The Pacers were able to reach the Eastern Conference finals a year ago, and are still trying to find their footing to build on that success. They are an offensive minded team that are going to look to push the pace.
The Heat are ranked near the bottom of the league in overall pace this season, so it is going to be crucial to match Indiana’s energy early on. Tyrese Haliburton has had some struggles to begin this campaign, but had 35 points and 14 assists on 11/18 shooting earlier this week against the New York Knicks. He will headline the star matchup between himself and Tyler Herro for the Heat.
Herro is coming off a career outing, where he put up 40 points, 8 assists, 5 rebounds and 4 steals against the Detroit Pistons. He shot 10/17 from 3-points range and had 18 4Q points, including a personal 9-0 run in the final minutes to force the game into OT before coming up just short. Herro is now up to 24.9 PPG on the season with 50/48/83 shooting splits.
The big man matchup tonight will include Bam Adebayo going up against Myles Turner. These are two All-Star caliber bigs that are capable of impacting winning for their respective squads. Adebayo seemed to get something going in the Pistons game, contributing a 20 and 12 double-double on efficient shooting. A big Heat update with the frontcourt is that Nikola Jovic is available following his nose injury that took place in the previous game, adding some big man depth to the rotation around Adebayo .
Miami can somehow finish these rough road trip off with an even 3-3 record if they can take care of the rival Pistons this weekend.
Injury Report (at the time of this publishing):
Miami Heat:
- Jimmy Butler (ankle) — OUT
- Josh Christopher (g-league) — OUT
- Keshad Johnson (g-league) — OUT
Indiana Pacers:
- Andrew Nembhard (knee) — OUT
- Aaron Nesmith (ankle) — OUT
- Isaiah Jackson (achilles) — OUT
- James Wiseman (achilles) — OUT
- Tristen Newton (g-league) — OUT
Projected Starting 5 (subject to change):
Miami Heat:
- Terry Rozier, G
- Tyler Herro, G
- Haywood Highsmith, F
- Kevin Love, F
- Bam Adebayo, C
Indiana Pacers:
- Tyrese Haliburton, G
- Bennedict Mathurin, G
- Ben Sheppard, F
- Pascal Siakam, F
- Myles Turner, C
Broadcast Info:
- Tipoff: 7:00 PM EST
- TV: FanDuel Sports Network 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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With Butler out, Miami can continue the process of speeding up the pace of it’s running game. It will be the style of the future when the older, slower players are gone. May as well begin the process now.
I get the impression the percentage of players missing games with injuries across the league seems to be rising. Our Jimmy has now missed three and this was a concern going in. Hopefully, it’s not a trend, too early to say yet.
We need at least one, better two of those.
This Pacers team plays at a pace (get it) that is tough on us. Luckily, a couple of their quick players are out.