NBA Southest Division: Heat Drops Two in the Big Apple
The Miami Heat has lost two games the last two nights in New York City, on Thursday to the New York Knicks and Friday in double OT to the Brooklyn Nets. This puts Miami three games behind the Indiana Pacers in the loss column. Miami still has four more games left on this current road trip.
Last night, the Heat hung tough but after a game tying three from Norris Cole sent the game into a second overtime, after Lebron James fouled out for the first time this season, they just ran out of gas. The Nets pulled away in the second overtime for a 104-95 win. Joe Johnson led the Nets with 32 points ans they won their fifth in a row. Brooklyn is now in second place in the Atlantic Division at 15-31, three games behind the Toronto Raptors.
The Heat is still comfortably ahead in the Southeast Division, leading the Nets next opponent, the Atlanta Hawks by seven games. The Hawks are one of the few Eastern Conference teams with a winning record at 20-17. That would put them in the third spot of the playoffs stated now.
The Washington Wizards were looking to join the Raptors at .500 last night but were drilled by the number one seeded Pacers 99-63. The Wizards looked good in the first half with John Wall and Bradley Beal contributing to keep the road team close. But the second half was a nightmare as George Hill sparked a 15-0 run to leave the Wizards in the dust. But, the Wizards are still a team with some nice pieces and they could get things together down the stretch and make a nice playoff push. With Beal, Wall, Nene and Marcin Gortat, there is some talent there.
The Charlotte Bobcats are fading. They have dropped two in a row and eight of their last ten games to fall to 15-22. Charlotte is still slowly improving but there seems unlikely they will make the playoffs this year even in a bad Eastern Conference. They were blown out on Friday by the Minnesota Timberwolves 119-92. Nikola Pekovic burned the Bobcats for 26 points in 27 minutes and Kevin Martin added 19 to send the Cats down to defeat.
The Orlando Magic is just terrible. At 10-26, they have lost six in a row and last night were blown out by the Sacramento Kings by 20 points. The Magic can say what they want about Dwight Howard but he was obviously right when he claims there wasn’t much talent around him. Since he left this team has been a train wreck. Last season they were 20-62 so that’s a 30-88 post Dwight record. And that is after starting off 12-13. The Magic could get better quickly though because they will surely have another high draft choice next year in a very talent filled draft. With Andrew Wiggins, Julius Randle or Marcus Smart to go along with Rookie of then Year candidate Victor Oladipo, help could be on the way.
