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The Miami Heat lost a tough game by a point to Cleveland on Monday when Dwyane Wade missed a buzzer-beater, but they come into Toronto with plenty of motivation as the Heat and Raptors are separated by just a half-game in the Eastern Conference standings. These teams have each won a game in the season series, with Miami scoring at least 113 points in both games despite having just the 16th best Offensive Rating (106.8 points per 100 possessions) in the league.
Dwyane Wade, as always, is the guy to fear the most on the Heat — but the Raptors have done a surprisingly good job defending him this season as he's only shot 41.8 percent from the field in their two meetings compared to his 46.6 percent season average. Michael Beasley has actually been the tougher guy for the Raptors to defend this season, with a 24.5 PPG average on 51.4 percent shooting. While we can assume Chris Bosh is going to provide his usual production on offence and the boards tonight, he might also have to give a better-than-usual defensive effort to keep Beasley from negating his production on the other end.
Start time: 7:00pm ET
Channel: TSN2
Liveblog: theScore.com with James Borbath
Probable starting lineups
Toronto: Jarrett Jack, Sonny Weems, Hedo Turkoglu, Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani
Miami: Rafer Alston, Dwyane Wade, Quentin Richardson, Michael Beasley, Jermaine O'Neal
Five questions
1. Will the Raptors' high confidence level from beating the Lakers on Sunday help them tonight or will it cause them to relax too much against the Heat?
2. Since Andrea Bargnani has been playing superior defence lately, would it make sense to have him cover Beasley while Bosh handles offensively limited Jermaine O'Neal?
3. Is Sonny Weems up to the challenge of guarding Dwyane Wade in his first career NBA start?
4. Why does Wade play so well in Toronto? He's averaged 34.2 points per game in his last five games at the Air Canada Centre.
5. Are you surprised as I am to learn that young people still use the word "bogus"? Here's Weems' reaction to the news that DeMar DeRozan got left off the rookie team for the Rookie-Sophomore game on All-Star Weekend: "Oh that's bogus. That's bogus. I just found out. That's bogus right there. That's bogus. Who's on it? Jerebko. C'mon man. Jerebko? That's bogus. That's bogus."
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