It's been almost a week since the Miami Heat had a game thanks to the All-Star weekend spectacular. Don't get me wrong, it was fun to watch and overall went pretty well for the members of the Heat that participated. The first guy to go was James Jones. He won the 3-Point Shootout on Saturday night, beating out the Celtics' Ray Allen (NBA all-time leader in 3-pointers) and Paul Pierce (3-Point Shootout defending champ)
Then came the main event, which went very well for the Big 3 up until Dwyane Wade re-injured his right ankle early in the 3rd quarter. He sat out the rest of the game and I'm sure Heat fans all over the place, myself included, were waiting anxiously to find out the severity of the injury. To make matters worse we couldn't get any answers until the following day after Heat practice.
The Miami All-Star crew returned to South Florida bright and early, around 7am on Monday, so Erik Spoelstra held a late 5pm practice to give them a chance to sleep and rest a bit before heading to the AAA. What we finally found out after practice that D-Wade was fine. He fully participated in practice and should be fine moving forward.
Only Mike Miller will be held out of tonight's game against Sacramento. Erik Speolstra confirmed that Miller did not suffer a concussion last week, but Spo still wanted to give him a little more time before sending him back out. I wouldn't be too worried about Miller though. He looked just fine after practice, smiling and laughing while shooting the ball around.
Looking at tonight's opponent, the Sacramento Kings are not in very good shape right now for multiple reasons. They are in the midst of a pretty crappy season, having won just 13 of their 53 games. The bigger problem for fans in Sacramento is that the franchise's owners seem to be considering moving the team out of the California capital city and a bit further south to Anaheim. For a clearer picture, check out this article that I found while looking around at Sactown Royalty, SB Nation's Kings blog.
GAME NOTES
- Miami has won 13 of their last 14 games against the Kings, including 5 straight.
- The last time Sacramento won in Miami was in November of 2001, a streak of 8 consecutive home wins for the Heat.
- Kings rookie DeMarcus Cousins is coming off an impressive showing during the All-Star Rookie Challenge. He put up 33 points and 14 rebounds on Saturday, and in games that actually count is averaging 19.3 points and 13.6 rebounds in the nine leading up to the All-Star break.
- Miami has won 10 of their last 11 games while Sacramento has lost 7 of 8.
- Udonis Haslem (foot), Dexter Pittman (knee) and Mike Miller (concussion symptoms) are all out for Miami.
- Sacramento will be without top scorer Tyreke Evans (foot) as well as Francisco Garcia (calf) and Hassan Whiteside (knee).
Tipoff from the AAA is set for 7:30. Of course you never want to look past an opponent, and a matchup against the 13-win Kings should act as a nice tune-up game for Miami after a 6-day layoff. Hopefully it's just that. If you're going to the game, maybe I'll see you there...Let's Go Heat!!