The Miami Heat came into this game against the Pacers being challenged by their head coach. Would they respond or affirm Spo’s beliefs?
The Miami Heat entered Wednesday night’s game with a top-five record in the NBA. This has been fueled by efforts that have seen them become the best home team in the NBA, being 17-1 on their home floor in American Airlines Arena along the comfortable and familiar confines of South Beach.
On the road, however, it wasn’t the same story for this Miami team, with a .500 record of 9-9 away from their own place. This obviously wasn’t lost on the team and especially not the head coach, as he was quoted recently as saying about his team that they weren’t very good on the road. When asked if he thought his team was the “surprise team” of the league at this point, this was his response.
He adds, “I think we stink in the road.” https://t.co/fs4PmDznTc
— Ira Winderman (@IraHeatBeat) January 8, 2020
The Miami Heat team came into this game against Indiana and responded. It started really back and forth for about the sum of the first quarter. After that point though, it was all Miami Heat.
The Miami Heat took a 13 point lead into the half, en route to winning the game by a score of 122-108. This wasn’t even the biggest storyline of the game though. Yes, I will repeat, the actual results were not the biggest storyline.
Jimmy Butler and T. J. Warren exchange words at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, eventually leading to Warren's ejection.#HEATTwitter #NBA pic.twitter.com/sDoLKEi3tn
— Bally Sports Florida & Bally Sports Sun (@BallySportsFL) January 9, 2020
There was a tussle between Jimmy Butler and T.J. Warren of the Indiana Pacers. They have been going at it since the first matchup a week or so back and it began to boil over again on Wednesday night. The scrum eventually ended with Warren being tossed out of the game, but not before shouting obscenities and letting the bird fly in Butler’s direction.
“Ok, I’ve been abusing him all night off the paint setup, let me just set him up here and.....gone...you know what it is..BAM!”
— All U Can Heat (@AllUCanHeat1) January 9, 2020
https://t.co/GyT3ndRWRg
The next storyline that was bigger than the results themselves was the internal battle between Bam Adebayo and Myles Turner. For a refresher, Turner was the big man seemingly chosen over Bam for Team USA this past summer. The final tally tonight was heavily in the favor of Bam, as you can see in the above clip.
The Miami Heat are right back at it on Friday, as they will take on the Brooklyn Nets. They will spend the weekend in New York as they will take on the New York Knicks on Sunday as well.
They should get victories in both, while the Brooklyn Game will be the toughest of the two. We can’t wait to see them though, either way!