The Miami Heat look to continue their six-game win streak against the Detroit Pistons Saturday at 8:00 p.m. EST inside Kaseya Center.
After a 13-game win streak, Detroit enters on a two-game losing streak, including a tough three-point loss to the Orlando Magic at home on Friday night. Cade Cunningham did have a 39-point, 13-rebound, 11-assist triple double, however, his second triple-double of the season.
Detroit rests atop the East at 15-4, two games ahead of Miami (13-6). The Heat has not squared off with the Pistons this season. They went just 1-3 against them last year after sweeping the season series in 2023-24 (when Detroit won just 14 games).
In its most recent outing, Miami secured a 106-103 win over the Milwaukee Bucks. It has a pair of three-point wins over the Dallas Mavericks and Bucks, respectively, since Tyler Herro’s return.
The Heat’s six-game win-streak is their fifth win streak of six games or more since the 2017-18 season. Will they be able to get to seven? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Injury Report (at the time of this publishing):
Detroit Pistons:
NOT YET SUBMITTED.
Miami Heat:
- Myron Gardner (G-League) — OUT
- Norman Powell (groin) — PROBABLE
- Andrew Wiggins (hip) — PROBABLE
- Jaime Jaquez Jr (hip) — QUESTIONABLE
- Terry Rozier (not with team) — OUT
- Vlad Goldin (G-league) — OUT
- Kasparas Jakucionis (G-League) — OUT
Projected Starting 5 (subject to change):
Detroit Pistons:
- Cade Cunningham, G
- Ausar Thompson, G
- Duncan Robinson, G/F
- Tobias Harris, F
- Jalen Duren, C
Miami Heat:
- Davion Mitchell, G
- Tyler Herro, G
- Norman Powell, G
- Andrew Wiggins, F
- Bam Adebayo, F/C
Broadcast Info:
- Tipoff: 8:00 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)
Come back to Hot Hot Hoops at game time to join our GameThread and chat about the game live with other Heat fans!
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This one should be a grind. Looking forward to see Duncan’s video tribute and to see him play again. I usually watch only Heat games.
Heat slowly making Nikola Jovic realization they should’ve already known
Maybe the Heat were wrong all along (excerpts from allucanheat 12/29.2025)
The Miami Heat may be slowly realizing that Nikola Jovic might not be as valuable in the NBA as he is on the international stage. To be quite honest, it’s probably something they should’ve realized earlier, and certainly before giving him a hefty contract extension last month.
Through the first month of the season, Jovic has had a pretty forgetful start. He hasn’t looked comfortable at all this year, with probably the exception of a handful of games, and he just logged his first DNP-CD of the year.In other words, after coming back from injury, he found himself on the outside looking in of head coach Erik Spoelstra’s rotation.
It could’ve been Spo just playing it safe with Jovic’s return, and giving him more time to get back to full health, but it’s certainly not an encouraging sign. After such a strong summer for Team Serbia in the EuroBasket Tournament, it’s only natural to suggest that perhaps Jovic has much more value on the international stage than he does in the NBA.
After all, a big reason why the Heat gave Jovic the extension before the start of the season was because of how impressive he looked during the summer for Team Serbia.The Heat expected Jovic to carry that offseason momentum into the start of the season, and that simply hasn’t happened.
In fact, the argument could be made that the opposite has transpired instead.In the worst way possible, the Heat may be slowly realizing that they may have acted rashly in handing Jovic an extension before the season. And if something doesn’t shift with his play soon, the proof will be even more obvious than ever.That Jovic may not be as valuable as the Heat believed he’d be in terms of the long-term team blueprint. If this is indeed the case, Miami may have made a massive mistake.
Observation
This is something we have discussed here previously.
Is Jovic’s style better suited to the European game? Did the Heat overestimate his value and act too quickly to give him a 4 year.$62M extension? Can he adjust his game to a more physical NBA power style of basketball to meet the team’s PF needs? If not, what is the solution?
Because of his current rookie scale salary and 4 year extension, it will be extremely difficult to trade him this year. He has until next summer to adjust his game to prove his extension was not a big mistake.
Again, I would send him to Sioux Falls for a month or so to get his head and game together. This is preferable to him riding the bench until his mojo somehow returns or forcing him to play without his mojo and dealing with the pressure of potentially costing Miami games.
I read that.
Lets be clear about one thing.
There is no a player better suited to the European game. European game is more difficult than NBA in sense, that its far more complicated. If anything, vice verse is true, a lot of NBA players has problems adjusting to the European basketball. Pure athletes wont fare well there, you need to learn systems and play how coaches wants you to play.
So, if you are good enough to play a power forward along Jokic for Serbia, you are good enough for playing in NBAm too. If you play like s**t 20 games or so, that doesn’t mean that you are bad player. It just means, that you don’t play according your strengths.
Lest see some other players slums:
-Bam started last season terrible. It took him 2 months to start playing good.
-Herro started last season strong and finished it slow.
-JJJ started slow and played himselves out of rotation last season.
-Ware started strong, and play poorly to the point, that comparisons with HW become obvious.
– Dunc has been terrible for long stretces of the season.
-I wont even start with Butler.
This season, everybody started well but Jovic.
Now, Dru and Mitchell had two average or even bad games. Simone cant hit anything for last 5 games. JJJ is not as effective as he was. Powell is down to earth.
Its time to other players is stepping up. Thats the strength of Heat. A lot of players could mean high level of the game all the time, with a chance to hide players slumps.
“-JJJ started slow and played himselves out of rotation last season.”
That’s exactly why I am concerned about Jovic. Miami was a play-in team last season with or without the Quitter. Because Jaquez was coming off an all-rookie first team year, Spo gave him more rope to work himself out of his slump than he would give to most other second year players. Jaquez never got his mojo back so he was sitting at the end of the bench by the playoffs.
Two things happened with Jaquez over the summer: 1) He got his head together and 2) changes were made to Miami’s offense which played right into his strengths. Miami needed Jaquez to be a playmaking, rebounding, scoring SF able to create his own shots and score in the paint. He adjusted his game to meet the team’s needs. Consequently, he has been flourishing and has helped Miami win games.
On the other hand, this year, with the team’s good start and Jovic’s bad one, Spo hasn’t been able to afford to allow Jovic to play himself out of his slump at the risk of adversely impacting the team’s chemistry and results/ wins.
Miami needs Jovic to use his size to be a rebounding, scoring, defensive PF to rotate with Bam and Ware. If he can do that, score 10-12 points a game and still do a little playmaking, that would be gravy. He has the size and athleticism, all he needs is the desire and commitment to adjust his game. If he can do that, he shouldn’t have a problem adjusting to the new system and getting his share of minutes, points and rebounds. If he can’t/won’t make the necessary adjustments, he will remain on the end of the bench until his mojo returns or until he can be traded. That is why I recommended sending him to Sioux Falls…to allow him time to make necessary adjustments to his game and to get his mojo back.
You make some good points here. If it was up to some of the people here, Jaquez would have been thrown off the team by or before the end of last season. Some weren’t happy we signed Davion. Some questioned why in the world would they draft and sign Pelle. It is too soon to make a final judgement on Jovic. And All You Cah Heat often puts out some of the more ridiculous articles, especially Michael Saenz.
Heat may already be facing a major crossroads just 20 games in. (excerpts from allucanheat 12/29.2025)
With Tyler Herro in the starting lineup, the Miami Heat have not been the same team. And after all the feel-good from the first month of the season, it’s pretty clear that the Heat may be facing a major crossroad at just the 20-game mark.
The Heat have won their last two games, but if you’ve paid close attention, it’s pretty easy to see that they haven’t been the same team. I wouldn’t place all that blame on Herro, but it’s no coincidence that he’s back in the starting lineup, and all of a sudden, things on the offensive end of the floor seem off again.
Maybe this is just a short adjustment period that the team needs to work through, but the Heat are coming off their two lowest scoring and slowest performances of the season.
The Heat has been a different team with Tyler Herro. If you take the last two games as a sample size, and an extremely small one, the Heat go from being the highest-scoring team in the league to a bottom-5 scoring team. They also go from having the 13th-best offensive rating to the third-worst.
Perhaps most eye-opening, if those statistics weren’t enough, the Heat go from playing at the fastest pace in the league to outside the top 11.”
Again, there was likely going to be some growing pains as they welcomed Herro back into the lineup, but what if this is much more than that?
What if Herro simply doesn’t fit the Heat’s new playstyle, and what if they have to make a big long-term decision on not only his future, but the overall long-term future of the team?
The Heat have time to turn things around And just 19 games in, it will be 20 after the Heat’s Saturday night tilt against the Detroit Pistons, the Heat may have some very big questions to answer.
This could all be moot if the Heat are able to get back to their old ways (and send a strong message in the process) against the Pistons, but if they don’t, the noise surrounding all of these concerns is just going to get louder.
Observation
There’s a lot riding on this game for several reasons. If Herro is going to slow the team/offense down because he’s still stuck in the old slow down/half court/pick & roll system, it isn’t going to work, no matter how many points he scores. The sooner Spo figures that out, the better off the the team will be.
Heat in disarray articles are immensely popular with this fanbase.
I would say JJJ being out for that bench unit will be a big story if we can’t get someone else off that unit to take charge and be the sparkplug that is JJJ. I’m going to guess Niko will get a few minutes tonight. Hopefully he can bring some JJJ guac.
Sensationalist bs. Drawing any conclusions from 2 games is typical of some here and especially typical of AUCH, the Nature Enquirer of south Florida.
Something to think about. If anything, Herro’s return should theoretically improve the team’s pace and increase the scoring. If it does neither, then there has to be a reason. I agree two games are inconclusive. We should have a better idea of the impact his reintroduction to the team’s offense (and defense) are having by the end of December.
Correct. Even a 10-12 sample size isn’t much, but you can at least see trends.
*National Enquirer *
My points were that Herro and Niko are key in determining just how far Miami can go this year. If both live up to expectations, the sky is the limit. If both fail to do so, adjustments will need to be made.
This is an absolutely terrible BS article. I wonder whether the author has even seen the last two games. If yes, it’s even worse.
Cause he should be coming off the bench. Always was and is his greatest contribution to this team. Came back and being instantly thrown into the starting lineup was a spobot decision. So he’s earned it more than pelle? No he hasn’t also norm scoring has gone down and the ball isn’t moving as much anymore because of herro. I have nothing against him as some may think just think he’s been overvalued here and has no-showed/been injured or doesn’t show up when the games really matter. He averages 14 ppg in the playoffs, and hasn’t had a great game besides that game in the bubble 5 years ago
Whether Herro should be coming off the bench or starting is a relevant question. But imho not because Herro is not good enough, but because we have two similar players in Herro and Powell and it is relevant to question whether the team is better off with two of them sharing the floor. But I understand that if you have an allstar you usually start him unless there is a really good reason not to. And Herro was our best scorer and played really well in both games and we won. This means he is going to start tonight as well. And I disagree with the claim that Powell’s scoring has gone down and our offense has slowed down because of Herro. We scored less mostly because of our opponents’ good defense. Other teams are adjusting to our style.
Yup. Just trying to keep things real. Herro must make team better if he expects to get paid big $. Scoring points while team’s pace and chemistry decline won’t cut it.
Jovic needs to find his mojo on his own. Spo can’t play for him. Just like Ware and Jaquez, he alone must decide to go all in to be the best player he can be. It does no good for the team if he is on cruise control when he needs to be in overdrive. He needs to be more Jaquez and less Whiteside.
who will stop Dunc?
I vote for Simone. But I bet Davion and Dru will give him hard time as well.
Good test game against the East’s #1 team. I hope the team returns to its fast paced run & gun offense. Scoring targets for this season should be Bam, Herro and Powell averaging 20+ ppg, Wiggins, Jaquez and Ware averaging 15+ ppg and Mitchell, Larsson, Fontecchio and Jovic averaging 10+ ppg. Talk about a potent offense.