SEATTLE – Since the first week of December the Miami Heat has played 17 games, losing just once.
Anyone remember the game Miami lost?
Yep, it was last Monday, at home, to the Seattle SuperSonics. That 98-96 defeat rankled Heat players at the time and it no doubt rankles them still, which means tonight’s Seattle-Miami rematch at KeyArena should be a tasty little showdown between two of the NBA’s best.
“We know they’ll be ready for us,” Sonics coach Nate McMillan said Saturday with wry understatement.
Indeed, Seattle has given Miami one of the few blemishes in a season that is on its way to being special. After acquiring All-Star Shaquille O’Neal in an offseason trade with the Lakers, the Heat has been transformed from an also-ran to an obvious title contender.
With 27 victories to date, Miami seems likely to be the runaway winner for best record in the Eastern Conference. Cleveland, the current conference runnerup, has 20.
Plus Miami is equally good, home or away. The Heat pushed its road winning streak to eight games by winning at Portland on Friday night and has a 13-4 road record this season.
As well as O’Neal has played – he averages 21.9 points (13th in the NBA) and 10.6 rebounds (sixth) a game – he has almost been upstaged by teammate Dwyane Wade, Miami’s brilliant second-year point guard. Wade, who gave the Sonics fits in the earlier game, is the league’s seventh-leading scorer at 24.1 and is fourth in assists at 7.7.
“I think he’s definitely surprised a lot of people with his dominance of the game so soon,” McMillan said. “He has taken over some games for (Miami). Everybody knew he’d be a good player, but I don’t know if anyone thought he’d be this good this soon.”
The Sonics, meanwhile, have cooled considerably after a dazzling stretch through November and early December. Seattle has dropped three of its past five at KeyArena and brings a two-game losing streak – a season first – into tonight’s game.
“We’re seeing a team we just beat, but we’ve lost two in a row so this will be a big challenge for us,” McMillan acknowledged. “We know that team will come in here ready so, mentally, how do we respond to this game? Can we get back that edge, that hunger that we had earlier in the season?”
Seattle guard Ray Allen, who scorched the Heat for 35 points in the previous meeting, doubts his teammates will have any trouble getting up for tonight’s clash.
Over the NBA’s 82-game schedule, Allen said, players sometimes “have to find different ways to get themselves ready. Maybe that’s because there is nobody on the other team that you have to worry about or maybe it’s a team that is not good record-wise. Against teams like that, you can get caught sleeping a little bit.
“But this will be one of those games where you won’t have to find a way to get yourself ready,” he said. Given Miami’s record, he went on, “the table is set because the motivation is already there. All you have to do is just go out there and play.”
Added forward Nick Collison, “We’re going to be playing one of the best teams in the league and one of the best players in the world in Shaq, so we definitely don’t need any extra motivation. There are certain games you look forward to playing and this is definitely one of them.”
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