After a demoralizing loss against an Orlando Magic squad missing five of their best players, the Miami Heat are due for a much needed bounce back victory. They managed to completely blow a 25-point lead, 22 entering the fourth quarter, in embarrassing fashion in the previous loss.
The game put the Heat in a current three-game losing skid, and are just 5-5 over their last 10. They still remain the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference, but saw their record drop back to an even 13-13 .500 record on the season. In what seemed to be a breakthrough stretch of success for this team just over a week ago, inconsistency struggles have appeared again.
Tonight, they will host the visiting Brooklyn Nets, who sit at the 11th seed in the East at an 11-17 record. However, Miami has shown over recent years that no game should be viewed as an easy win. Still, they will have a great opportunity to finally respond against a losing team in a rebuilding phase.
Brooklyn is coming off a double-digit loss to the Utah Jazz, and dealing with an injury to arguably their best scorer in Cam Thomas— who is listed as OUT for this evening. Nets starting point guard Ben Simmons put together his best outing of the season in their recent loss, posting 15 points, 10 assists and 6 rebounds.
Cam Johnson is another standout player to keep an eye on, who has put up 19.1 points on 48.8% shooting during this 2024-25 campaign.
The Heat got impressive performances from their core guys in Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo and Terry Rozier in the Magic loss, despite going cold in the second half. A lot of the team’s offense could be centered around that trio tonight if Jimmy Butler winds up being ruled out. Butler has missed the last two games with a stomach illness, and is listed as questionable for tonight.
Injury Report (at the time of this publishing):
Miami Heat:
- Jimmy Butler (illness) QUESTIONABLE
- Kevin Love (personal reasons) PROBABLE
- Josh Richardson (heel) OUT
- Keshad Johnson (g-league) OUT
- Josh Christopher (g-league) OUT
Brooklyn Nets:
- Dorian Finney-Smith (left calf) QUESTIONABLE
- Jaylen Martin (g-league) QUESTIONABLE
- Isaiah Whitehead (g-league) QUESTIONABLE
- Bojan Bogdanovic (foot) OUT
- De’Anthony Melton (ACL) OUT
- Cam Thomas (hamstring) OUT
- Trendon Watford (hamstring) OUT
- Ziare Williams (knee) OUT
Projected Starting 5 (subject to change):
Miami Heat:
- Tyler Herro, G
- Duncan Robinson, G
- Jimmy Butler, F
- Haywood Highsmith, F
- Bam Adebayo, C
Brooklyn Nets:
- Ben Simmons, G
- Keon Johnson, G
- Noah Clowney, F
- Cam Johnson, F
- Nic Claxton, C
Broadcast Info:
- Tipoff: 7:30 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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Kel’el Ware finished with eight points, seven rebounds and two blocks in 14 minutes off the bench. The Heat out-scored the Magic by 26 points in his minutes. “I thought he was really good,” Spoelstra said.
(If that is the case Spo, why didn’t you play him at all when the team went through that 37-8 nightmare in the 4th quarter?)
This is a good chance for Spo to play Ware and Bam together in spots. They can start the first and third quarters together, then alternate sitting the rest of each half, with Bam getting the majority of the minutes. When they play together, Bam would theoretically be using minutes that would otherwise be assigned to the power forward position (e.g., Highsmith, Jovic).
This would be the perfect place to up Ware’s minutes.
When is JRich coming back?
I expect the Nets, even without their best player, to give us a battle.
Almost every team gives us a battle these days
The SkyForce, with our rookies and two-ways could probably hold their own against the starters. Dru, Larsson, Christopher, Johnson, Ware.