What: Charlotte Hornets (7-14) (3-6 away) at Miami Heat (13-10) (5-4 home)
When: 7:30pm Eastern
Where: Kaseya Center; Miami, FL
How to watch: Bally Sports Southeast, NBA League Pass
Outfitting: Hornets–Icon (teal), Heat–City (black ‘Heat Culture’)
Game Lines: Hornets +8.5, O/U 224.5
Injuries:
Hornets: Mark Williams-doubtful (back), LaMelo Ball-out (ankle), Cody Martin-out (knee), Frank Ntilikina-out (leg)
Heat: Bam Adebayo-out (hip), Tyler Herro-out (ankle), Haywood Highsmith-out (back)
Before we talk about basketball, I had no idea the Heat did this whole Heat Culture city edition stuff this season. They’ve got the black jerseys with some Heat Culture branding. There’s also a special court that has a nice gradient in the key with an entire mission statement stuffed in there. Kinda interesting, kinda cool.
There isn’t a whole lot of new stuff to preview that we didn’t talk about in either the preview or recap of the game these two played against each other on Monday. It’s the same two teams with the same two players.
The Hornets need to emphasize containing dribble penetration. The Heat got into the paint a lot and forced the Hornets to scramble way more than they would like. The Heat finished with a modest 42 points in the paint, but the penetration opened up kickout passes to open shooters, who hit 42.9% of their 3-point looks, and is why the Heat were able to assist on 31 of their 37 made shots.
The visitors also need to try their best to keep the Heat off the free throw line. That’s tough with how, uh, physical the Heat play and how much benefit of the doubt they seem to get, but the Hornets still have to play disciplined. The Heat made ten more free throws than the Hornets on Monday in a game they won by two. Even up the free throw shooting, and the Hornets possibly win the game.
It was remarkably evenly played game on Monday. If nothing else, hopefully we get the same entertaining basketball game that we got then. Even better would be a Hornets win. There are few teams more satisfying to beat than the Heat.
