Miami Heat: 3 hot factors vs. the Milwaukee Bucks
By Trey Flynn
The 21-20 Miami Heat are going into Milwaukee tonight to face off against the Bucks, but can they stop the “Greek Freak” in Giannis Antetokounmpo?
The Miami Heat are playing the Milwaukee Bucks tonight and this Bucks team isn’t messing around this season with a 30-12 record. Moreover, this 21-20 Heat team has been anything but consistent, so this game could be one-sided.
Although, if the Heat/Bucks previous match up tells us anything, head coach Erik Spoelstra will have the right game plan installed to stop this marvelous Milwaukee team.
The Heat beat the Bucks 94-87 in their first outing on December 22nd, not letting the greek freak get any easy buckets. Giannis ended up with 9 points and was held to 3-12 from the field. That was his first game since the 2016-17 season that he ended up with less than double-digits in scoring, so whatever Spo did in that game, he should do it again tonight.
1. Let Bam be Bam
Bam Adebayo took some key minutes from Hassan Whiteside in the second half, and you can expect those very same minutes to go to Bam in this game as he will get a lot of the defensive usage on Giannis.
Moreover, Adebayo has been playing freakishly good lately. Playing him against a very athletically weak center team in the Bucks may be the secret ingredient to a solid win in Milwaukee.
2. The Dion Waiters game?
Can this be the game that Dion Waiters finally gets his big minutes off the bench? I think so. While I’m not the biggest supporter of Waiters and his “confidence,” I am also self-aware of the fact that Miami’s offense is looking terrible lately.
Late-game heroics may not be enough from Waiters in Dwyane Wade in this one, they might have to pull out all the stops early.
3. Point Justise
Can Justise Winslow keep creating and scoring at will? Yes, yes he can.
Winslow (26 points last game) has been an incredible tool for Spo’s offense, and he is making me question what role All-Star Goran Dragic will have when he comes back (I’ll probably take that back within the next 15 minutes). You can expect Winslow to have another big game, and possibly another great game from Josh Richardson (9 assists last game).
Essentially, the key to the game is to stop Giannis. If you stop Giannis, you can probably beat out the rest of the Bucks team, unless Khris Middleton is feeling up to the job.