Golden State Warriors at Miami HEAT Game Preview

The Miami HEAT host the Golden State Warriors Wednesday night at AmericanAirlines Arena. Get your tickets now! Tip-off is set for 7:30 PM, and television coverage is on FOX Sports Sun. You can also listen to the action live on 790 The Ticket.

1: How was it that Phoenix pulled out the win against Miami?

Couper Moorhead: In the classic way that teams tend to steal games on the road. Phoenix just kept hanging around and hanging around long enough that once they got hot, on some pretty tough shots in the final period, they were able to take just enough of a lead to finish things out. While offense has been an issue in many of Miami’s losses this season, it wasn’t Monday night against a weaker Phoenix defense that allowed a ton of comfort and space around the rim. It was, in many ways, one of Miami’s most efficient games of the year minus a few misses from deep. But the Suns scored 72 points in the second half, 40 in the final frame, and even if a good chunk of those were well contested, they still fell and the Suns ended a 17-game losing streak.

Joe Beguiristain: As Coup mentioned above, Phoenix just kept plugging away until it finally had its breakthrough in the second half powered by Troy Daniels, Jamal Crawford and, of course, Devin Booker. Thanks to those guys, the Suns shot a scorching-hot 61.9 percent from the field after halftime, with a bulk of their looks being contested.

And while Miami ultimately fell short in the end, the team fought hard down the stretch to try and stop Phoenix’s momentum. In particular, Kelly Olynyk and Dion Waiters hit some big shots and combined for 24 points on 9-of-11 shooting in the final period.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough.

Couper: That you can give the Warriors the very best of what you’ve got, and sometimes they can still put out a victory. It was, without a doubt, Miami’s best offensive game of the year given the quality of opponent as they made 18 threes, Josh Richardson dropped a career-high 37 points and the combination of Justise Winslow and Dion Waiters also combined for 46. The Warriors being the Warriors, they still had enough shotmaking, including Kevin Durant’s one and only made three of the game, to close things out down the stretch despite some costly late turnovers. We didn’t need to learn that Miami is capable of playing with Golden State because we’ve already seen it happen plenty of times over the past few years, but it was still good to see Miami have success against a defense very capable of switching, which typically flattens the HEAT offense out when executed properly. It’s doubtful that the HEAT will duplicate such an explosive evening, but if they can keep the game once again at a fairly slow pace they have enough to give themselves a chance.

Joe: We learned that the HEAT can compete with anyone when they’re firing on all cylinders.

And like in many cases when it has success, Miami kept the ball moving and racked up 32 assists (which was one off its season high). Naturally, Dwyane Wade led the way with nine dimes, including four in the final quarter.

But even with all that and a career night from Josh Richardson, Golden State still found a way to come out ahead. Hard as it may be to accept, that’s just the nature of the beast when you have two of the top five players in the league in Kevin Durant and Steph Curry to go along with Klay Thompson, DeMarcus Cousins and Draymond Green in the starting lineup.

Simply put, the Warriors have the best offensive rating in the league for a reason.

3: How could potential Golden State absences change things Wednesday night?

Couper: Steve Kerr told reporters on Monday that there was a possibility he would rest some players on either leg of their Miami-Orlando back-to-back starting Wednesday night. As of Tuesday night, only Damian Jones was listed on their injury report as out and no further news is expected until the team shoots around Wednesday morning. So we’re really working on pure speculation here, but given how significant it would be if a large enough portion of their star-studded rotation rests we have to discuss it.

First of all, Kevin Durant hasn’t missed a game all season so he doesn’t appear to be a likely candidate to sit. Klay Thompson has only missed one game this year and it wasn’t a part of a back-to-back, so it doesn’t seem likely he would sit either. Steph Curry dealt with an injury in November but hasn’t missed a game since December 1st. On the flip side, Draymond Green has missed time this season, DeMarcus Cousins hasn’t been playing in back-to-backs as he returns from an Achilles injury and both Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala have missed games here and there, with Iguodala sitting out the previous meeting with the HEAT.

What does this all mean? It’s tough to tell. What would be significant is if any two of Curry, Durant or Thompson doesn’t play, which not only weakens their starting group but changes the way Kerr goes through his rotation. Typically he can stagger all three so that at least one is always on the floor. Take one or two away and suddenly the Warriors are playing with some lineups that could struggle to score – and there’s no more perfect sort of lineup for Miami’s bench group to take advantage of. By the time you read this there will be more information. We’ll see.

Joe: As of this writing, it’s unclear how Head Coach Steve Kerr will manage his players on this back-to-back set with the HEAT and Magic. But if I had to guess, I’d say he rests Curry and Cousins for one of the games. Curry has missed a decent amount of time over the past couple seasons due to injury, while Cousins is still working his way back from Achilles surgery.

Even in that scenario, though, the Warriors would still have Durant, who has been an absolute monster of late. Over the past six games, the 30-year-old is averaging 29.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.2 blocks on 58.8 percent shooting.

In other words, KD has been KD.

STATUS/INJURY UPDATE: Cousins (Load Management - Achilles Recovery) is out.

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