The Miami Heat came into Friday night’s game with flashbacks on the brain. Thinking back to several weeks ago, it was then where they took a massive defeat to the Timberwolves in Minnesota.
While the win wasn’t disproportionate from a scoring perspective, the magnitude of the loss is only amplified because it was against the lowly Timberwolves. Friday would be a chance to avenge such an ugly result and that’s exactly what they did.
Starting the game, they found themselves down 11 points at one point. While that didn’t last, they eventually found themselves almost up 20 at points as well.
With things settling down by the end, they didn’t quite even out but the Heat were able to pull out a win. The return of Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro sure did help a lot as well.
The Miami Heat handled their business by doing what they were supposed to do in their Friday win over Minnesota, 121-112.
While Jimmy had only missed the previous game due to a non-covid flu-like issue, Tyler had missed quite a few games due to a foot. It was good to get him back on the floor for the Heat moving forward into the future, but as the box score would later indicate, it wasn’t so bad for this game either.
Tyler Herro came out gunning, hitting his first four three point shots, consecutively. He proceeded to do so for the remainder of the game too, finishing with 27 points, three rebounds, and four assists on 10-13 shooting from the field and 6-8 from three.
Tyler wasn’t alone in his hot shooting on Friday though. Goran Dragic also joined the party, a very encouraging sight and though he has been trending upward across the last several games.
He would finish with 23 points, four rebounds, and three assists on 10-18 shooting from the field and 3-6 from three. This was a very encouraging thing for the Miami Heat’s chances in the remainder of the season and the playoffs, but especially considering their upcoming consecutive matchups against the Boston Celtics.
Those are games that just so happen to have direct influence on their postseason seeding position and chances. There’s also this.
The Celtics lost on Friday night to the Bulls, which puts the Heat ahead of them by one game and out of the play-in slot at number six in the seedings. The Heat can pull away and close in on higher seeds with wins on Sunday and Tuesday against the C’s.
Those will surely be interesting contests and for more reasons than just those. On Friday though, it was just good to beat a team that they were, undoubtedly, supposed to beat.