The Miami Heat were beating the Houston Rockets for the majority of their outing last night, but the Rockets and James Harden were too good in the end for Miami.
James Harden’s 58 points against the Miami Heat was a historic night, as no Houston Rocket has ever scored that many points versus the Heat. The Heat are currently the 10th seed in the Eastern Conference and are now a game back from both the 9th and 8th seed. Moreover, this was a must-win game for the Heat, as they can easily see themselves slip out of the playoff race, as General Manager Pat Riley believes its instrumental for long-term success to not tank.
This win would have been monumental for a Heat team coming off a very surprising win against the Golden State Warriors, where we saw Miami finally come together with the performances from Goran Dragic off the bench and Dwyane Wade leading the Heat in the 4th quarter.
In this Rockets’ game, we saw Harden and some help from Austin Rivers and Chris Paul to take over the Heat in the last 5 minutes of the game. Head Coach Erik Spoelstra’s lineups were working throughout the entirety of the game, however, the Heat just looked gassed and they had to take out players like Goran Dragic and Derrick Jones Jr. for fatigue and body rest (coming back from injuries).
And while players like Kelly Olynyk, Bam Adebayo, Justise Winslow, and Josh Richardson did more than enough to win this game, the Rockets and their star Harden (who will probably win the 2019 MVP) were too good to match. However, we should shoutout Dragic, who totaled 21 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds all in 25 minutes of action (he’s been playing super well over the past two outings).
Tune in tomorrow night against the Brooklyn Nets, as the Heat will look to beat a very good Nets team at home in AmericanAirlines Arena, tune in at 7:30 PM Eastern.