LeBron James leads Dwyane Wade-less Miami Heat to a 98-75 victory over Detroit Pistons - NBA Recap
On Sunday night at the American Airlines Arena, Miami Heat faced the Detroit Pistons, a night after having had their 17 game winning streak at home snapped at the hand of Memphis Grizzlies.
Miami however did not have much trouble in putting away the Pistons with a score of 98-75, cleaning up the season series 3-0. Miami have now improved to 24-3 at home while the Pistons have lost their last two.
LeBron James led the Heat in scoring by getting 26 points; Chris Bosh added 22 points and also grabbed 9 rebounds while James Jones had season best of 18 points on a career high 6 three pointers on eight attempts. Rookie point
guard, Norris Cole also contributed well with 10 points.
Brandon Knight was the highest scorer for the Pistons with 16 points while Rodney Stuckey and Greg Monroe chipped in 11 points each. Tayshaun Prince had a rough night on both ends of the court; he finished the game with 8 points
while also managing a team best of 7 rebounds.
Pistons looked to take the game to Heat in the opening period as they matched Miami in their offence. They closed out the first quarter leading by 2 points, 21-19.
In the second quarter though, the Heat shifted gears, turning the intensity up on both ends of the floor. They managed to score 31 points in the quarter while only allowing the Pistons to score 19. The Piston seemed unable to contain
LeBron James who continued to dominate the game with 15 points at the half way mark. Jones dropped 3 long range bombs in the first half as well as the Heat closed out the first half ahead by 10 points, 50-40.
In the second half, the Heat continued to dominate. They started the frame on a 17-5 run with Shane Battier providing the exclamation points on a reverse layup. The burst helped the Heat open up a 67-45 lead. Pistons did display
some signs of life after that as they ended the third quarter on a 7-0 run managing to cut the lead down to 15 before the start of the fourth.
In the fourth quarter, Miami did not need much out of their first unit as the Miami bench continued the tradition of free flow scoring in the game. James Jones added three more triples in the fourth while Norris Cole scored all
of his 10 points in the last 4:19 minutes of the game.
Dwyane Wade who was missing in action with a sore right ankle sat courtside to watch his team-mates. This was the 11th game in the season for Miami in which Wade has not featured but the Miami team with their second
highest scorer out with injury, never backed off their task. Miami have only lost 1 game in Wade`s absence this season, but will need their star guard desperately as they look to embark on a tough stretch involving games against the Boston Celtics and Chicago
Bulls.
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