The Miami Heat knew that Wednesday night would be challenging. What they didn’t know, is how good they could come out and play defense, at times, on a squad with two guys as potent as the Brooklyn Nets have.
Anytime you face off against Kevin Durant or James Harden-led teams, as individuals and nonetheless in a tandem, you always have to keep your antennae up for a scoring barrage, as either of those guys are capable of offensive explosions at any given time and on any given night.
With that though, this would be the second part of an initial two-part challenge for the Miami Heat. With Brooklyn and the Milwaukee Bucks being at or near the top of everyone’s list of favorites for the season thus far, it would be important for the Heat to see if they could have good showings against each as early as possible.
Well, that’s just what they’ve done and not only have they had good showings, but they’ve beaten both and it wasn’t necessarily that hard. Now, you could say that the Miami Heat haven’t faced either team fully-loaded, as the Bucks were without Jrue Holiday and the Nets are, of course, still without Kyrie Irving.
The Miami Heat had a tough matchup on Wednesday against Brooklyn. However, the only thing tougher than the matchup in the game… was the Heat defense.
However, you play the teams on your schedule and the roster that they throw out there on any given night. In those situations, the Miami Heat have prevailed.
They did so on Wednesday, in part, by holding the Nets to their lowest scoring total of the short season thus far, just 93 points. They were also able to hold Kevin Durant six points below his season average of 31 points per game, at just 25.
It doesn’t seem like much, but when talking, perhaps, the greatest scorer the league has ever seen… that’s something. They also held another one, his teammate and point guard in James Harden, to just 14 points.
Though he did contribute seven boards and seven dimes, he didn’t do anything to kill the Heat in this one either. On the Miami Heat’s side, it was another well-rounded outing.
Bam Adebayo led all Heat scorers with 24, while Jimmy Butler added 17 of his own. P.J. Tucker was third in scoring, at 17 points, while both Tyler Herro and Dewayne Dedmon paced the bench with 14 points each.
Dedmon and Herro were also among the leading rebounders and all off the bench, finishing with nine and eight boards, respectively. As apart of The Ded-Man’s nine boards, six of them were on the offensive end.
Again, this was a well-rounded Miami Heat outing and win. It’s just what they needed to see to continue to get started right amongst a tough schedule to get out the gate.
With confidence-building wins like these, there is no ceiling to what they accomplish if they continue up this kind of play. That’s, especially, on the defensive side of the ball.