Preview: Miami Heat big three host Utah Jazz
After all the off-season talk of pundits and prognosticators, the Miami Heat’s Big Three have weathered the early storm and sit just one game behind the Atlanta Hawks in the Southeast division at 5-2. Just two weeks into the 2010-11 campaign, Heat shooting
guard Dwyane Wade is happy with the progress he and his new teammates, LeBron James and Chris Bosh, have made, but knows they are still a long way off from where they’d like to be. The Heat will have the chance to improve their chemistry, as well as their
record, when they host the Utah Jazz (3-3) on Tuesday, 9 November.
Should Miami pull out the victory at AmericanAirlines Arena Tuesday, it would be the franchise’s eighth consecutive victory over the Jazz. Still, Wade, who has led his team in scoring in each of the squad’s three November contests, knows where the Heat are
and where they’d like to go. “We’re starting to get more of a comfort zone,” the eighth-year man told reporters earlier this week. “It’s only been seven games. We can look at the next seven as hopefully being better than we were in the first seven.”
If last Saturday night’s 101-89 victory over the New Jersey Nets was any indication, the Big Three, along with the rest of the Miami Heat, are well on their way. Although Wade led the team with 29 points, he was aided by James and Bosh, who accumulated 23 and
21, respectively. It marked the first game this season in which the highly publicized group eclipsed the 20-point mark.
Furthermore, the team has played exceptionally well at home this season, winning each of their three contests at AmericanAirlines Arena by an average of 23.4 points per game. The Heat have also had Utah’s number recently, taking seven straight over the Jazz
in Miami (dating back to March of 2003), and winning 11 of the past 13 matchups in the series overall. Likewise, Wade has been a key figure for his squad in the series, especially at home, where he is averaging just over 32 points in six career contests.
Meanwhile, if there’s one facet of Miami’s game that hasn’t come into question in the young NBA season, it has been the Heat’s ability to play sound, team defence. This season, the team has allowed their competition to shoot just 40.4 per cent from the floor,
while limiting each of their seven opponents to less than 100 points.
That could spell trouble for a Utah offense that has been one of the league’s most inconsistent in terms of their production. As good as they have been, averaging 118.0 points per game in each of their three wins while shooting 44.4 per cent from behind the
3-point line, the Jazz have been equally as abysmal in their losses, posting just 86.7 points per contest on 22.5 per cent shooting from 3-point range.
Still, the team sits at .500, after winning three of its last four games, the most recent of which was an exciting 109-107 double-overtime win against the Los Angeles Clippers this past Saturday. However, the Jazz will need to find more of that magic if they
hope to topple the surging Heat.
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