The Miami Heat are 19-18 and are now tightly locked into the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference after beating the Washington Wizards, 115-109.
The Miami Heat beat up on the Washington Wizards 115-109, to prove they can separate themselves from the rest of the non-playoff teams in the Eastern Conference.
The Wizards were led by Bradley Beal (33 points), Trevor Ariza (21 points), and Otto Porter (14 points), even though they only played Porter a total of 21 minutes. And While a lot of these Wizard players tried their best throughout the contest, it still felt very apparent that since the John Wall season-ending injury, and the Markieff Morris injury, the Wiz kids may just be forfeiting their 2018-19 season for the fight of Zion Williamson, understandably.
However, the Heat have decided they have no such fight in the battle for the Duke star.
Miami was led by the surprising efforts of Hassan Whiteside and the determination of James Johnson, with some solid performances from Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson.
There were 3 main keys to this game against the Wizards, and we have to start with the surprising performance of Mr. Whiteside.
1. Hassan Whiteside was a monster
The play of Hassan Whiteside kept the Miami Heat in this game against the Washington Wizards, where we saw the big man completely outplay the surprising new asset for the Wizards in Thomas Bryant.
Whiteside finished with 21 points (9-13), 18 rebounds, and 2 blocks, completely erasing the recent criticism he’s been getting from all of Miami (we’ll see how long these type of nice games last).
As for Whiteside’s production in his minutes played, Whiteside, yet again, has played another under-30 minute game and head coach Eric Spoelstra may have found the right amount of time to play the big man.
Erik Spoelstra says Hassan was named player of the game
— Shandel Richardson (@ShandelRich) January 5, 2019
2. Point Justise is really, really good
Since the unfortunate injury of All-Star Goran Dragic, the Heat’s Justise Winslow has become the new point guard of the future in South Florida.
“Point Justise,” as known by most of the Heatles around NBA Twitter, has been such a relief for a Heat team struggling without their usual starting guard Dragic.
Winslow pulled off another fantastic performance as the Heat’s point guard with this star-type stat line: 13 points (5-9), 10 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 turnover. What more can you ask of the recently extended forward now playing a brand new position?
3. James Johnson is back folks
Miami Heat captain James Johnson is back and he’s here to stay.
The forward came back having one of the best plus/minuses of the game with 17 points (6-12) and 4 rebounds, leading the Heat as another point forward option, facilitating without getting the attractive assists that Winslow ended up with.
Johnson wasn’t named a captain for nothing, he is the real deal. And when JJ is on, the rest of the Heat squad tends to follow.
Next game details
The 19-18 Miami Heat go into Atlanta to play the Hawks at 6 PM Eastern time, tune in to hear Jax relay his famous quote, “It’s time to ball y’all.”