The Miami Heat faced off against the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night, Thanksgiving Eve. This would prove to be a payback game for the Houston team.
The Miami Heat entered this Thanksgiving Eve Wednesday with the opportunity to put another impressive notch on their belts in the form of a win against the Houston Rockets. This would be a chance to beat the Rockets for the second straight time this season, the first time on their home floor, after mauling them during the sixth game of the season back in Miami.
It would be a third very impressive win to put on a resume that already features wins against this Rockets team, along with an impressive early-season victory in Milwaukee against the Bucks. Needless to say, things would not prove to work out that way and for a myriad of reasons.
The first big reason why the Miami Heat probably failed to get a win on Wednesday was the absence of their resident superstar in Jimmy Butler. As described by Coach Spoelstra according to reports, Butler was experiencing the same sort of illness that caused Goran Dragic to miss time recently. Either way and no matter the cause, Butler was not on the floor for the Heat, which takes us to our next reason.
James Harden is the second reason. He was just too much on tonight, which he is on most nights. We actually had a tweet during the game that perfectly sums this all up, but for the record, Harden finished with 34 points, six rebounds, and five assists.
Harden’s a bully..he took the last matchup very personal and set out to prove a point, licked his chops when he found out Jimmy wasn’t playing, which is only exacerbated by being beaten in their last game to Texas’s new superstar..smh
— All U Can Heat (@AllUCanHeat1) November 28, 2019
The last big reason is Russell Westbrook. Unlike the poor shooting, 11 point, seven turnover performance in the first game, Westbrook came to play tonight as well. He was his usual dynamic self. He finished with 27 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists.
The high scorer for the Miami Heat was Tyler Herro with 22 and off the bench none the less, which is encouraging. He had quite a few bright spots in this game, albeit in defeat.
The Miami Heat are off for the holiday on Thursday but are right back at it on Friday against the Golden State Warriors. They should be able to achieve better results in that contest.