What: Charlotte Hornets (6-11) (5-4 home) vs Miami Heat (7-8) (4-4 away)
When: 7:00pm Eastern
Where: Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
How to watch: FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass
Outfitting: Hornets–Association (white), Heat–City (red)
Game Lines: Hornets +3.5, Hornets money line +135, O/U 216.5
Injuries:
Hornets: Miles Bridges-out (knee), Tre Mann-out (back), Mark Williams-out (foot), Nick Richards-out (ribs), DaQuan Jeffries-out (hand), Grant Williams-out (knee)
Heat: Kevin Love-questionable (knee)
The Hornets are coming off an entirely self inflicted loss to the Magic on Wednesday. They played good defense and had a good gameplan to limit the Magic. They didn’t shoot the ball all that well, but it should have been good enough for a win. Their 27 turnovers had something to say about that.
After having a couple of days to lick their wounds, they’ll host the NBA’s other Florida team. The Heat arrived in Charlotte overnight after playing an NBA Cup game on Tuesday night against the Bucks. In that game, the Heat overcame a 22 point third quarter deficit to have a chance to win the game at the end. They couldn’t pull it out, but they put up a real good fight. If you’re one that puts a lot of weight into physical and mental fatigue, then you’ll figure the Hornets have a significant advantage tonight. The Hornets will be looking to make amends for their errors on Monday. The Heat are going to have to find a way to get up for a game against the lowly Hornets after barely missing out on a spectacular comeback against the Bucks in a cup game.
Every scouting report on the Heat starts with Jimmy Butler. He’s had some ups and downs this season, but it’s been more up than down the last few games. He is barely shooting threes this season, which means he’s good for three or four tonight. But more importantly, the Hornets need to defend him without fouling. He gets fouled on his shot attempts more than any non-big in the NBA according to Cleaning the Glass. Nick Richards leads all players in that category with 31% of his shot attempts resulting in fouls, in case you were wondering. Butler is one of the better mid range scorers in the league, but you can live with the general inefficiency of the midrange game if you keep him off the line.
The Heat are a good 3-point shooting team around Butler. Tyler Herro and Alec Burks have been lethal high volume shooters. Duncan Robinson and former Hornet Terry Rozier haven’t been quite as good on the season, but we’re very aware of how deadly they can be if they get in rhythm. Terry will certainly be extra motivated as well.
It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it–the Hornets have to take better care of the ball tonight. The Heat take care of the ball well; it’s just about the only thing they do particularly good or particularly bad. If the Hornets get sloppy again, it’s likely they’ll get badly outscored in points of turnovers again. They probably won’t win much if that continues to be the case.
