The Miami Heat will look to avoid coming up empty handed on this final three-game road trip of the season in the second night of a back-to-back in Washington.
They are coming off two terrible losses to the Toronto Raptors, but can at least go into the play-in tournament with two straight wins with a pair of winnable matchups this weekend— beginning with the Washington Wizards. The Heat are 3-0 versus the Wizards this season. And they have won all those matchups comfortably with double-digits edges.
However, Miami is still on a downward spiral at the most inopportune time possible. They’ve lost 10 of their last 13 games and have collapsed as a team down the stretch of this regular season rather than earning their way into a top-six seed to avoid the play-in. The Heat have had several chances to improve their seeding positioning, but have continued to come up short when they’ve needed wins the most.
For Washington, they have successfully put together a true tanking season. They are sitting at a 17-63 overall record and the last place 15th seed in the East. In addition, they are currently riding an eight-game losing streak. Miami will have a prime opportunity to see the vision of a potential play-in/playoff rotation on the floor in a very winnable matchup for themselves.
Injury Report (at the time of this publishing):
Washington Wizards:
- NOT YET SUBMITTED.
Miami Heat:
- NOT YET SUBMITTED.
Projected Starting 5 (subject to change):
Washington Wizards:
- Bub Carrington, G
- Tre Johnson, G
- Bilal Coulibaly, F
- Will Riley, F
- Tristan Vukcevic, C
Miami Heat:
- Davion Mitchell, G
- Tyler Herro, G
- Pelle Larsson, F
- Andrew Wiggins, F
- Bam Adebayo, C
Broadcast Info:
- Tipoff: 7:00 PM EST
- TV: ESPN & 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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So, you’re saying they have a chance?
Tre Johnson, Bilal Coulibaly, Jaden Hardy, Justin Champagnie and Anthony Gill are QUESTIONABLE for tonight’s game vs. Miami.
Seven players are already OUT for Washington: Alex Sarr, Tristan Vukcevic, Trae Young, Anthony Davis, Kyshawn George, D’Angelo Russell, Cam Whitmore.
who the f is the defensive coordinator specialist guru on this team.friggin joke that tyler after 6 years in nba is playing d like this.where the f is heat culture. if ud was on this team this sht would not be happening.he’;d personally teach ty how to man up.guys or else
Washington would probably give Miami a run for its money if Trae Young and Anthony Davis were playing.
what would a lineup w/o ty norm be instead put 2 athletic roughens in kj gard .we know current squad is mediocre ,why not try diff players that can defend and give us more of an athletic team .and a diff fn look.fk one way players cant win
With any luck, Heat is 3 games away from joining Wizards in the lottery. I agree about 2 ways. Spo has gotten away from Miami’s trademark defense. The team has lost its identity. With this group, the run & gun offense has been fools gold.
For whatever reasons, the team has quit on Spo. They’ve lost their confidence and determination. They’ve let go of the rope.
I would like to see Miami clean house this summer and draft good defensive players with clear offensive potential. I also hope Herro and Jovic are gone by next season.
P.S. If Riley had no intention of reinforcing the team at the deadline, why in the world did he not trade players like Wiggins and Powell for everything he could get. Surely, he could have squeezed a couple of second rounders out for them and maybe a young prospect or two .Talk about being asleep at the wheel.
i think with a core of ware pelle jjj thats a starting point free up $$ get picks and get some athletic 2 wayers in here plus the elusive ss..i want my team playing like toronto okc minn u of michigan just total 2 way athletes.pelle jjj have earned my respect as vanilla 2 wayers id like gard and kj also part of future they are 2 wayers.who can score to.gard is my fav player dude is so scrappy spo has him in jail same with kj
I think even Spo has stopped believing his own bs. I know most of the players and fans have. Time for regime change. There’s no time like the present.
hes been talking spo bs since hes been here.his spoisms have been tuned out by yours truly for a good decade.its all bs choregraphed and paraticed at his home in front of his bedroom mirror
lol 🙂
2 way player? U of Michigan? My top hope for the draft is U of Michigan Yaxel Landeborg, a solidly built 2 way pf.
There are a few first and second round two way players who could help the team. See attached.
https://www.tankathon.com/mock_draft
For full player profiles, including strengths and weaknesses, just click the name. e.g., Yaxel Lendeborg
https://www.tankathon.com/players/yaxel-lendeborg
I like the comment about fools gold. The fast break attack did have a decent amount of impact on some teams as we did steal some early games with it. But, as the season wore on it worked less as teams adjusted and techniques like that can only cover up so many deficiencies.
It did wear Embiid out. It was the perfect strategy to use on players like him. It’s still lucky for us that he’s unavailable now as we might be playing them in the play-in. In fact, don’t look now, but there is a real possibility we are going to have to endure déjà vu again with happened last year. But, probably not. It would be hilarious though. We’d all go nuts.
Had to laugh. The same thing essentially happened with the infamous Dolphins Wildcat formation.
Also what happened to the Suns’ “Hydra Offense” with 3 point guards starting (Dragic, Thomas and Bledsoe). When it failed, management blamed Dragic (who was miserable playing out of position as a SF) rather than themselves.
What’s ironic is that Riley accepted having a mediocre team, rather than re-building in order to avoid missing the playoffs. Yet, the team is on the verge of doing just that. You can’t beat Father Time.