• Oklahoma City Thunder (24-11, 2nd in the West) at Miami Heat (21-15, 5th in the East)
• When: Wednesday, 10 January 2024 at 6:30pm CST
• Where: Kaseya Center, Miami, FL
• Offensive Rating – MIA: 114.8 (17th) / OKC: 119.7 (4th)
• Defensive Rating – MIA: 113.5 (13th) / OKC: 112.1 (7th)
• Net Rating – MIA: 1.4 (15th) / OKC: 7.6 (3rd)

The Set-Up

The grind. That arduous part of the season where you live life to the cadence of Kendrick Lamar’s song Swimming Pools.

Play a game (drank)
Hop a plane (drank)
Play a game (drank)
Hop a plane (drank)
One day rest (drank)
Play a game (drank)
Hop a plane (drank)

Over the next 20 days, the Thunder play 12 games in all four contiguous time-zones. There’s a reason why we are seeing funky line-ups and inconsistent play. Coach Mark Daigneault can’t risk completely tiring out the players that will likely be in the rotation come playoff time. That’s why you see a Lindy Waters III play a 20-minute stretch here or there. That’s why you see Vasilije Micic play a game and then not play another. While that keeps players fresh, it does tend to lend itself to inconsistent play on the floor. The hope is that all this will allow not just the team to be fresher come playoff time, but also, for more players to have seen time on the floor to get comfortable with whatever situation may be thrown their way in high-pressure games.

This is the first of two meetings between these two teams. They will face off again on March 8th in Oklahoma City.

Betting Info

• Line: OKC -4.5
• O/U: 233.5

Injury Report

OKC

• Davis Bertans (illness) – Questionable

MIA

• Jimmy Butler (toe) – OUT
• Kyle Lowry (hand, illness) – Doubtful
• Caleb Martin (ankle) – Doubtful
• Dru Smith (knee) – OUT

Three Big Things

1. Pace – OKC’s pace of play is the 6th highest in the league. Miami’s is the 4th slowest. I think whoever plays their brand of basketball wins this game. If the Thunder are able to get into transition, they have the advantage. But if Miami allowed to muck things up and zone the Thunder into running a lot of half-court offense, it’ll definitely be to Miami’s advantage. Miami is that weird team that doesn’t get a lot of blocks (last in the league at just 3.3 a game), but does a good job a protecting the paint (13th best, allowing 48.6 points in the paint a game).
2. Josh Giddey – I actually think this could be a big game for Giddey as a connector piece. Miami will probably play a lot of zone, and having Giddey at the nail allows him to survey the floor and find the best possible option to eventually get a good shot.
3. A Rookie Duel – This game pits the reigning Rookies of the Month in Chet Holmgren and Jaime Jaquez Jr. For revered as Oklahoma City’s scouting department is, I think flowers should also be thrown in Miami’s direction for their scouting department also. It seems like they’ve got another good one in Jaquez Jr.