**What:** Charlotte Hornets (32-31) (14-16 home) vs Miami Heat (34-29) (14-18 away)
**When:** 7:00pm Eastern
**Where:** Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
**How to watch:** FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass
**Outfitting:** Hornets–City (yellow/orange), Heat–City (black Miami vice)
**Game Lines:** Hornets -6.5, Hornets -270, O/U 228.5
**Injuries:**
Hornets: Tidjane Salaun-out (calf)
Heat: Not yet submitted, Norman Powell likely out with groin strain, Simone Fontecchio and Nikola Jovic questionable
The Hornets probably didn’t need a plane to fly home from Boston, as Eric Collins might say. They’ve ling since proven that they’re one of the more dangerous teams in the NBA, but Wednesday night’s evisceration of the Celtics really put the league and national media on notice. The Hornets have now won 16 of their last 19 games, and all three of the losses came when Miles Bridges and Moussa Diabate missed all or part of the game due to suspension/ejection.
The Heat are on their own little hot streak. They’ve made it a hard for the Hornets to close the gap, though the whole play-in group is gaining ground on the 76ers in the six seed. In their last 10, the Heat are 7-3, and they’ve won each of their last three. The last two of those were easy home wins over the Nets, so while the Heat are on the second night of a back to back, they haven’t been pushed in quite a while.
The scores of Heat games are not very representative to the type of team the Heat are. They average 120 points per game and their opponents average nearly 117, but that’s entirely because of their pace, not their offensive firepower. They are actually middle of the road on offense but have a top five defense in the league. They are first in the league in pace by a wide margin. The difference between the Heat and the second fastest team in the same as the difference between the second and 12th. It’s an interesting dichotomy in styles. The Heat play a breakneck pace to generate mediocre offense. The Hornets play at one of the slowest paces in the league but are exceptionally efficient.
It looks like the Hornets will catch a break on the injury front. Norman Powell was deemed week to week with a groin strain about six days ago, so I don’t think he’ll be suiting up tonight. That leaves Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo, and Andrew Wiggins to shoulder the offensive burden. All are very talented, so it’s not like the Heat are lacking firepower without their all star. They also have some interesting pieces off the bench in Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Kel’el Ware. Jaquez has regressed as an outside shooter but has still managed to up his usage and efficiency. Ware is a monster rebounder that has some touch from deep.
The Heat are just kind of…the Heat. They’re not bad, but they’re not extraordinarily good either. One thing worth noting is that all of their recent wins have featured some extended cold spells at different points in the game. That means there could be openings for the Hornets to go on one of their game breaking runs, especially if they keep up the defensive focus they’ve been playing with.
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