Miami Heat: Contrasting styles of Knicks and Wizards makes for intrigue

The Miami Heat head into their next contest fresh off of a much needed bounce back victory over the Washington Wizards. After falling to Washington on Wednesday in a close one, the Miami Heat came back and did what they were supposed to do.

Not only did they handle their business on Friday, but they did so in convincing fashion. That was so much so the case that by midway through the third period, the Washington Wizards had benched all of their starters, proceeding to play bench guys the rest of the night.

That game and two-game series is all over though, so that means on to the next one. On to the next one, indeed, though as the Miami Heat get set to face off against the team coached by a guy that knows Jimmy Butler as well as anyone.

The Miami Heat start a series against New York Sunday, a completely opposite team than Washington.

The Miami Heat will start a two-game series on Sunday against the New York Knickerbockers. They are now coached by Jimmy Butler’s two-time former coach in Tom Thibodeau, who he played under once with the Bulls and for the second time in Minnesota.

Outside of that reunion though, there is another specifically interesting thing about this matchup. The Miami Heat will play a completely opposite team on Sunday than they have faced in their last two games.

They will go from facing the fastest paced team in the league in Washington to facing the slowest paced team in the league in New York. “Pace” is defined as the amount of possessions any one team gets.

That’s fine though, as the Miami Heat are built to be suited to play any style, honestly. They don’t operate with a true point guard, which gives them a ton of flexibility from a playmaking perspective when it’s good, but a ton of confusion when it’s bad.

Their bigs are all capable of playing along the perimeter as well, which allows them to sort of be amoebic as far as their philosophy from game to game. They aren’t confined by a guy that can’t be effective outside of the paint.

The Miami Heat will have their hands full with a new-feel Knicks team over their next two games. This will be continue to be apart of a good test for them though and going against teams with this different of styles can only help to continue to get them where they need to be.