Seven and a half months after completing one of the blockbuster deals at last season’s NBA trade deadline, the Golden State Warriors and Miami Heat are set to meet again tonight for the second time in the Jimmy Butler Warriors era. The issue, though, is that Butler won’t play as he deals with a back strain, leaving the 9-7 Warriors extremely thin. Stephen Curry is also out for Golden State as he rests a sore ankle on the second night of the back-to-back, and Draymond Green is ill. Al Horford and Jonathan Kuminga are out, while Buddy Hield is questionable.
Miami’s injury list is much shorter: Tyler Herro remains out, Bam Adebayo is questionable, and Nikola Jović is doubtful.
The Heat are 10.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-410 on the Moneyline), and the point total is set to 234.5. The Warriors are +320 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down tonight’s clash and offer my prediction.
Golden State Warriors at Miami Heat preview, prediction
After Golden State went 23-8 last season after acquiring Butler, it’s had a much tougher ride of it this season. The Warriors are still a solid 8-5 in the games that Butler and Curry have both appeared, but they still find themselves in a Play-In Tournament spot because of Curry’s three absences. Golden State’s mediocrity hasn’t been either co-star’s fault: Butler is averaging an ultra-efficient 20.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 4.7 assists per game, and Curry — per usual — leads the league in made threes per game while averaging his most steals since 2017-18. The Warriors have lacked depth beyond their star trio after a quiet offseason, which could bode quite poorly for tonight. The team’s highest-scoring active player tonight will be Moses Moody (12.6 points per game).
Miami, meanwhile, has to feel okay about its return in the Butler deal. Wiggins is coming off of a quiet game, but he’s started each of the Heat’s 14 games so far, averaging 16.7 points per game on the second-best efficiency of his career while playing some solid perimeter defense. Davion Mitchell also came over from the Toronto Raptors as part of that deal, and he’s provided some steady playmaking and defense with Tyler Herro sidelined. The Heat also received Kyle Anderson, who was later in the package that brought back Norman Powell, a 25.5-PPG scorer and 46.1% three-point shooter in his first 11 games this season.
Warriors at Heat pick, best bet
Golden State should take a massive hit without its star trio. This season, the Warriors have been 2.3 points per 100 possessions worse without Curry, 11.9 points per 100 possessions worse without Butler, and 20.2 points per 100 possessions without Green. In particular, with Green out, Golden State’s defensive rating goes from 106.9 (which would be the second-best mark in basketball) to 121.0 (the fourth-worst). Curry has the largest impact on the offense, which goes from the equivalent of the seventh-best to the equivalent of the seventh-worst when he takes a seat on the pine. Together, the trio has a plus-14.9 net rating in 201 minutes, while the trio most likely to replace them in the starting lineup (Brandin Podziemski, Quinten Post, and one of Hield, Trayce Jackson-Davis, and Gary Payton II) has very rarely played together, to poor results.
Miami shouldn’t even have to play Adebayo in order to win. Though the Heat have suffered mightily without their defensive anchor, dropping from a 109.3 defensive rating (which would be the second-best in basketball) with him to 118.2 (the seventh-worst) without him, their offense has still been good enough that they’ve been able to win four of the six games he’s missed, including one over a contender in the New York Knicks. Even without Adebayo, Miami has gotten to the rim at the league’s seventh-highest rate, and even though it has struggled to finish, it should be fine against a Warriors team that has already allowed the seventh-highest percentage in the restricted area and is now without Green, one of the league’s better individual rim protectors. The Heat have also done a great job generating corner threes, which Golden State’s opponents have canned at the eighth-highest clip, and they’ve been among the most accurate teams on wide-open threes since Adebayo’s injury.
Defensively, Miami, too, struggles to defend the rim, allowing the ninth-best percentage in the restricted area, though that’s actually dropped to a league-average rate without Adebayo. The Heat have also allowed by far the most three-pointers per game, but they lead the league in contested threes while allowing very few wide-open looks. Either way, this depleted Warriors team should have trouble scoring inside: of the five Golden State players attempting two or more restricted-area tries per game, the only active one is Jackson-Davis, who’s made just 59.1% of his shots at the rim. The Warriors’ best corner shooter, Horford, is out as well, and while Moody and Richard have both been excellent from beyond the arc, it’s come on fairly low volume.
Golden State’s rotation tonight will have barely played together, if at all, so the Warriors find it difficult to perfect the off-ball, cutting style of Steve Kerr’s offense, which should lead to plenty of turnovers, and over the last six games, Miami has averaged the 13th-most points off of turnovers and the fifth-most fast-break points. The Warriors should also struggle to protect the paint, and the Heat have led the league in points in the paint since Adebayo’s injury.
