The Miami Heat came out on Wednesday night looking to take their standing winning streak to three games, picking up good wins over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday and Monday. But unlike the Atlanta Hawks, who want to run you out of the building with their scoring and offensive output, the Miami Heat would face a completely different beast on Wednesday evening.
Facing off against Kevin Love’s former Cleveland Cavaliers squad, one that features the rare two seven-foot behemoths in Jared Allen and Evan Mobley along the starting lineup, the Miami Heat would, again, be squaring off against a completely different type of team in this game.
Though they would show their dichotomy in their ability to win games in the last two contests, being able to outscore and contain Atlanta in separate games, they would do all that against a team that wasn’t nearly as defensively adept as the Cleveland Cavaliers squad.
The Miami Heat kept shooting well Wednesday, going over 50 percent from the field and not terribly from range. Turnovers would cost them the game though.
However, that wouldn’t even show up as much as one would have imagined, as the Miami Heat continued their hot shooting streak overall. Coming in right at 50 percent shooting from the field, 50 or over for the third time in a row, that would be the first time they accomplished such a feat this season.
So, what was it that would do the Miami Heat in? The answer is simply—turnovers.
Losing the game by just four points, the Miami Heat would do so by giving the ball away 24 times. And with those 24 turnovers, the Cavaliers would convert them into 29 points.
And though nobody claims to be a mathematician over here, the difference between four and nearly 30 points seems like enough for the Miami Heat to have won the game had they been able to be a bit more careful with their possessions. But never fear, as they’ll get another chance at it on Friday night.
That’s when they’ll welcome in this same Cleveland Cavaliers team for the second game of their two-game set. And though anytime you have that many turnovers or lose a game it’s a hurtful experience, they should feel good knowing that they almost won the game while almost doing everything they could to lose it.