On Tap for the Heat on Thanksgiving Week
Another exciting week of action for Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat. They will stay at home, or close to home for the Thanks Giving week. They begin their week in Orlando to take on the defending Eastern Conference Champion Magic on Wednesday. Then the Heat return home for the final two games of their week. First, it will be Gilbert Arenas coming to town with his Washington Wizards on Friday, and then they take on a semi-struggling Celtics team on Sunday. All three games will be televised nationally. The first two games will be on ESPN, with the Celtics game being broadcasted on NBATV. The matchups against the Magic and Celtics will also be available on Sun Sports (THANK GOD THEY ARE ON NATIONAL TV!!).
The Heat have been struggling of late. They had dropped their last three, and four of their last 5 before defeating the New Orleans Hornets team 102-101 on Sunday. Let’s not forget that they were without all-star point guard Chris Paul. Dwyane Wade took over that game going for 31 points, and 3-4 from 3 point land. But Wade got help, and it came in the form of his big men. Jermaine O’Neal 15, Haslem 14 off the bench, and Beasley with 17. Mario Chalmers had his best game of the young season scoring 12 and getting 9 dishes on an extremely efficient 5-8 shooting from the field. The rookie guard Marcus Thornton, who the Heat drafted with the 43rd pick in the draft, then traded went off against the Heat. He had 24 points 3 steals and knocked down 5 treys. He was expendable because he plays the same position as this one guy, Dwyane Wade, in case you haven’t heard, he’s pretty good.
The action will begin in Orlando. The Heat will travel to take on the Magic, in the first of three meetings wi
th them this year. The Magic come into the game with 5 consecutive wins, none of which better then the 83-78 victory at Boston. The problem with the Magic is that they can’t seem to get their entire team on the court all at once. Vince Carter, who they acquired via an off-season trade with the Nets, has missed 4 games this season. The versatile 4-man Rashard Lewis had to miss 10 games after being suspended for testing positive for a banned substance, and now Jameer Nelson will miss anywhere from 4-6 weeks after having arthroscopic surgery. Should be a fun game to watch, I think the Heat are going to have to attack Dwight Howard and get him into some kind of foul trouble if they stand a chance. In the end though, I think the Magic are going to be too much and take the game rather decisively.
Home sweet home against the Wizards on Friday. The two teams have already matched up twice this season. The Heat have beaten 
the Wizards both times, but both times they faced off, Washington was without Antwan Jamison. The Heat won 93-89 on November 4th and 90-76 a week later. Gilbert Arenas was a shooting machine in those games, but not in a good way. He attempted 47 shots in the two games, making just 16, that’s just 34%. He averaged 26.5 points in the two meetings. Meanwhile for the Heat it was all Dwyane Wade as he punished the Wizards with 40 and 41 point performances shooting 51% from the field. This game will be tougher because of the presence of Jamison, but this should be a “winnable” game for the Heat. The Wizards have won just once in November, that coming on a 108-91 victory over arch rival Cleveland. In that game, they were down 17, but rallied back to win.
The Heat will round out their weak against another struggling team, the Boston Celtics. They
are 10-4, but they came into last night’s game losing 3 of 4 games. They needed a buzzer beater in overtime to fend of the New York Knicks. Rescue came in the form of Kevin Garnett nailing a buzzer beater with the clock reading 0.00. He finished with just 10 points and 7 boards. He is having a difficult time finding his groove this year. Paul Pierce hasn’t, as he enters today averaging just shy of 20 points per contest. This game will likely be a low scoring, defensive game. The Celtics come in first in the league in point differential at +8.78, and have the league’s third best scoring defense allowing just 89.57 points per contest.
It should be an exciting week of action as the Heat will take on two of the marquee teams in the NBA, and a handful of stars such as Gilbert Arenas, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis, Dwight Howard, and Vince Carter take on Dwyane Wade and his Miami Heat.
