The Miami Heat are looking to get back to their winning ways.
After a pair of losses to teams solidly in playoff position, the Heat on Sunday night host the lowly Washington Wizards.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is optimistic – and not just because Washington’s record is one of the two worst in the NBA.
“We’ll get better from this,” Spoelstra said after losses to Dallas and Oklahoma City on consecutive nights. “There were a lot of good things to take away. None of us want to talk about (the positives) right now because we’re competitors.
“But by the time we get back to Miami, even the head coach can see good things happening in our locker room.”
One of those “good things” is the schedule. Three of Miami’s next four games are against the two worst teams in the league: the Wizards once and the Detroit Pistons twice.
Another positive for Miami is the arrival of reserve guard Patty Mills, who made his Heat debut on Friday, tying his season high with 13 points. He made 5 of 7 shots, including 3 of 4 on 3-pointers.
Mills strengthens a Heat bench that includes all-rookie candidate Jaime Jaquez Jr., who is averaging 12.9 points. Jaquez is coming off a 25-point game against Oklahoma City when he made 10 of his 13 field-goal attempts.
Miami’s starting unit is built around Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.
Butler is averaging team highs in points (21.7) and steals (1.4). He had a near triple-double against Oklahoma City with 20 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists.
Adebayo is averaging 19.9 points and a team-high 10.3 rebounds, but is coming off one of his worst performances of the season with five points against Oklahoma City, while going 1 of 9 from the field.
The Wizards are coming off a rare victory. On Friday, Washington snapped a 16-game losing streak with a 112-100 win over the Charlotte Hornets.
Kyle Kuzma led Washington with 28 points, and Deni Avdija added 18 points.
“I think our pride kicked in,” Avdija said. “We were like, ‘Man, we’ve lost so much. This is our chance right here to get out of this slump.’
“I think everybody was like, ‘OK, enough.'”
Brian Keefe, Washington’s interim coach, said he wants his team “going downhill” in attack mode.
Kuzma has shown he can comply, leading the Wizards in scoring (22.3). He has a versatile game, averaging 6.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists.
Avdija is averaging 13.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists.
Other Wizards players to watch include Jordan Poole and Corey Kispert – both of whom are providing quality minutes off the bench.
Poole, acquired by the Wizards in a trade this past July, is a durable player built to score. Over the past two seasons, he missed just six games. This season, he is averaging 16.7 points, and he is a career 87.5-percent shooter from the foul line.
Kispert, Washington’s first-round pick (15th overall) in 2021, is averaging 12.2 points.
Poole and Kispert combined for 28 points off the bench in the win over Charlotte.
-Field Level Media
