What’s up with the Miami Heat?
A three-game winning streak was halted by the Toronto Raptors in a game that saw the Miami Heat struggle in the battle inside without Bam Adebayo. The big man missed the Raptors game due to a hurt knee.
Miami is also missing the services of Tyler Herro, who’ve been the Heat’s go-to hot hand when they need buckets. Guys like Max Strus and Caleb Martin are doing their best efforts to fill the void but the Heat’s win-loss record isn’t showing it at this early part of the season.
Miami sits in 10th place in the East with seven wins and eight losses. That’s nowhere near expectations of where the Heat should be but there’s also no reason to panic. If their most recent win against the Phoenix Suns is any indication, then they’re still a team that can go elite once all the pieces are good to go.
What’s up with the Washington Wizards?
The Washington Wizards just came off a heartbreaking loss to an Oklahoma City Thunder team that just won’t quit.
The Wizards were on a wave of a 4-0 win streak, even without Bradley Beal on the floor for those four games due to health and safety protocols. Beal returned for the Thunder game and dropped 25 points including a potential game-winning jumper with six seconds left only to be one-upped by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander with a stepback 3 for the actual game-winner. That should hurt.
The upside is that Beal is back and looking to score again. Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis are putting up numbers of their own. If only the Wizards could get more consistency from their supporting cast, then they could’ve had an even better record than 8-7.
Storyline to watch out for
Both teams will try to bounce back from losses that put an end to their respective winning runs. Both teams also have a couple of weapons they can employ outside of the usual big names. Watch out for anyone among Max Strus, Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, or Will Barton to suddenly get hot.
Prediction
Should Adebayo miss one more game, Porzingis would have a field day against a thin Heat frontline. Beal looks to also be set on his comeback trail and might follow up his 25-point game with another big scoring night.
Prediction: Wizards win by a small margin.
Where to watch
The Heat and the Wizards will battle it out tomorrow live at 8:00 AM on TV5.
