The New York Knicks lit the nylon on fire en route to a 132-125 win over the Miami Heat Sunday evening.
No, it wasn’t literally on fire. But metaphorically, it was burnt to a crisp after the final whistle blew, behind Jalen Brunson’s masterful 47-point, eight-assist performance.
Collectively, the Knicks shot 55.3 percent from the floor, burying 20 of their 38 triple tries (52.6 percent) on the night. That’s not to say the Heat weren’t hot. They made six of their first eight from long distance, finishing with 17 made 3-pointers of their own at a 48.5 percent clip.
That said, Miami wasn’t able to generate many stops outside of the first six or so minutes.
Mikal Bridges followed suit with 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting. Ironically enough, Karl-Anthony Towns, who had 39 points in the two teams’ first meeting of the season, had just two points on the night, but alas. OG Anunoby had 18 points on 6-of-12 shooting while Josh Hart had 13 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and two steals on 5-of-10 from the floor.
The Heat were led by rising star Kel’el Ware, who had 28 points and 19 rebounds — they took a rebound away — on 11-of-15 shooting and 5-of-7 from 3-point range! He’s now 11 of his last 14 from beyond the arc. It was his third impactful game in a row — keep stacking days!
Jaime Jaquez Jr. scored 23 points on 9-of-15 shooting; Norman Powell had 22 points — 19 coming in the third quarter alone — while Bam Adebayo had 14 points and nine boards.
The Heat played well offensively, but the Knicks played just a little bit better.
Sunday’s loss drops the Heat to 15-14. Meanwhile, the Knicks improve to 20-8, good enough for the No. 2 seed in the East. Miami returns home to face the Toronto Raptors Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. EST, its last game before Christmas.
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That was a hard fought game against good opponent shorthanded.
From last two games, 1 qt. was bad, and 7 relatively good.
This is not a contender team, but I do see this team being a 5-6 seed, which is after all what I expected to be.
A lot of basketball in front of us, lets enjoy the ride.
That is the way I feel also. If the team puts forth the effort every game that they did yesterday, they can stack up some wins. They can’t afford to be inconsistent because they are not a great team with a super star that can carry them. I do strongly feel, however, that a trade or trades need to be done before the trade deadline.
We need to trade Herro sooner or later, there is no way around it, but along with one or two players for a elite level player. It would be painful to trade Ware, JJJ Pelle ot KJ, much more then Herro, but that’s the reality. You have to give up a lot to get something.
So, yeah, trade is coming. Greek is an obvious target. Kawhi maybe an option too.
I m not a friend to trade for “stars with benefits”.
Maybe there is an option to trade vets like Herro, Wiggins, Rosier for good younger players and picks and build around Bam, Ware and Powell.
Yes, your last paragraph would be the best case scenario. I am assuming the Heat will not trade Bam and they definitely should not trade Ware.
Its painfully obvious Miami (losers of 8 of its last 10 games) is a middling team in need of a ss. This is, for all intents and purposes, getting to look like another play-in season. This team, as presently constituted, can get out of the play-in round, at best. As a #7 or #8 seed, there’s no way the Heat can stand up to the Pistons or Knicks in a first round 7 game series.
The team has several very good role players. However, what it lacks is a durable alpha male who can perform in the clutch, carry the team during rough patches and bring out the best of the other players. However, Riley should not gut the entire team to bring in such a ss.
Other than a “team friendly” trade for Giannis that does not include giving up Bam or Ware, there does not appear to be a “quick fix” on the horizon by this season’s trade deadline. Therefore, as we had all presumed before the season started, this is probably a gap year (a conscious decision to accept a less competitive season to set up for a stronger future).
Now is the time for Riley to attempt to trade players who are not part of the team’s future plans. At best, he should be able to get a ss. At worst, he should be able to get a couple of very good players or mediocre players on expiring contracts along with draft picks. Logic tells me those expendable players are, at minimum:
Unless a “too good to be true” opportunity for a ss presents itself in the next 6.5 weeks, Miami should be a seller looking to acquire assets at the trade deadline.
Good, clear definition of a gap year and its proper application.
We all got a little optimistic as we had so much success early. I do believe our recent results are more aligned with expectations. Some of our hot start was that we caught a few teams by surprise, and some was that some players who got off to a hot start came back to earth.
I still believe we have a good core, and although we lack the classic go to crunch time guy, Powell is close to that. And we still need a quality backup big. But, really our starters are pretty competitive. Ironically, it’s been our depth, which at first was thought to be a strength but that was before we had enough input to analyze what we had, that isn’t good enough.,
We still don’t and will probably never know how good the team could have been if Herro was 100% healthy, at the start of the season, Jovic was having a Jaime-like year and the Rozier situation had been resolved to Miami’s satisfaction. Oh well. It is what it is.
Exactly
with tatum and haliburton out this year this cant be a gap year need our gm to perform a zito deal or 2.brunsons still very young and celts with tatum prob unbeatable
I know you would trade Bam in a heartbeat. The question is, would the Heat do that? Realistically? I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure. Since most of us don’t want to see Ware traded, without Bam being traded, no ss is walking through the door. If it was up to me, I would definitely trade Bam if it gave us a Ware/Giannis front line. Wow!
We tried as hard as we could, just not enough good players to beat the Knicks, who have been building a strong team over the last few years.
We’re in the trading period. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
I’ve resolved before the season that this is a “gap” year but the good showing at the start got a lot of us excited. But it looks like Heat is showing what they really are in terms of manpower. A play-in team still in building mode.
not far away the addition of norm and the development of ware is like adding two all star players to a playin team.u make two more good moves in the upcoming months east could be ours.this years team better than last years team easily
Riley has 6 weeks to turn lemons into lemonade. It all starts with the Rozier situation, in court or otherwise. That’s $26.6M just sitting there in an escrow account and no player, all because of Adam Silver’s gross incompetence. He must really dislike Arison and Riley. Everyone make mistakes. True leaders fix their mistakes and move on. They don’t allow them to fester. I’ve lost a great deal of respect for Silver and the NBA.
back up center(nurcic kessler) and ja lose wiggy ty dav jovic picks what does that do for the sunman
Mitchell is one of the best point of attack defenders in the league with one of the best assist to turnover ratio and you want to get rid of him. You want to trade Herro straight up for an older 8.5 ppg center or another center who is out for the season. SM can certainly do better. So could I.