Miami Heat stand on the verge of progressing to the second round of Eastern Conference Playoffs as they host the short-handed New York Knicks on Wednesday night at the American Airlines Arena
Game 5 of the Eastern Conference first round series will see the Miami Heat play host to the New York Knick at the American Airlines Arena. After losing out on the chance to wrap up the series at ‘the Big Apple’ in Game 4, the
Heat will be looking to close out this series at home in the South Beach.
The odds heavily seem to drop in favour of Miami when you look at all the games played at the American Airlines Arena during this season. Heat have been able to completely dominate the Knicks at home and out of the seven games
played during the course of this season (regular season + playoffs) they have only lost once and that loss came at the Madison Square Garden a night before.
This Miami team will not want to leave anything to fate and come Wednesday night, they will come out prepared not to get complacent the way they did in Game 4, having lost their double figure lead twice in that game.
"You carry it with you 24 hours, you go over what needs to be done, you correct it and you get rid of it," LeBron James said. "That's not saying that you don't care about it but you've got to move on to the next game. You can't
let it linger too much and carry that game into Game 5. So Game 4 for us is over. We're preparing for Game 5 now."
If the Heat are able to secure a win at home, they will advance to the second round of the playoffs where they would face off against the Indiana Pacers, who have already clinched their series against the Orlando Magic.
On the other hand, Knicks are on the brink of elimination, and it is a must win situation for them if they want to stay alive in this campaign. There task was tough even before the series started, but the injuries have taken away
a major chunk of whatever hopes they had. New York lost Iman Shumpert in Game 1 due to a torn ACL, lost Amare Stoudemire to a silly hand injury in Game 2 and 3 and the Baron Davis left Game 4 after a career threatening knee injury.
Having already lost Jeremy Lin during the regular season, interim coach Mike Woodson is now left with very limited options at the point guard position – Mike Bibby and Toney Douglas.
Mike Bibby who is expected to start will have his work cut out, trying to outplay ex-teammate Mario Chalmers and rookie Norris Cole while Douglas who has not even featured in the first 4 games of this series.
Even with the odds stacked up against them, the Knicks have a messiah in Carmelo Anthony who scored 41 points in the Game 4. He has labelled the game ‘exciting’ for him and has vowed to enter the Game 5 with an open mind.
"I mean, history is definitely not on our side right now. But we believe and we're confident that we want to go down there and win this basketball game and bring it back here. We get this one, who knows what can happen."
All in all, it is tough situation for Woodson who will look up to his star players like Anthony and Amare` Stoudemire to put up a similar kind of performance which propelled the Knicks over Heat last time around.
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