Last Friday night was a pretty epic one in the NBA: of the nine-game slate, two games went into overtime, and four others were decided by fewer than 10 points. The New York Knicks got that day’s Emirates NBA Cup action started off with a 140-132 win over the Miami Heat at Madison Square Garden.
Tonight, the mini-series will travel to South Florida for another game between two of the East’s marquee teams. The Heat will host the Knicks at the Kaseya Center, with the game tipping off at 7:30 p.m. ET. Neither team will be fully healthy: New York will be without both Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby, while Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro will continue their prolonged absences for Miami.
The Heat are 2.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-125 on the Moneyline), and the point total is set to 244.5. The Knicks are +105 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down tonight’s most widely-anticipated contest and offer my prediction.
New York Knicks at Miami Heat preview, prediction
New York entered the season widely expected to be among the top two teams in the Eastern Conference, and so far this season, that’s exactly what it’s been. Through the first month-ish of the season, the Knicks are 8-4, trailing only the Detroit Pistons, and new head coach Mike Brown and some of the depth additions have already made huge impacts. Each of New York’s Big Four is averaging at least 15 points and 0.8 steals per game, and fifth starter Mitchell Robinson would rank ninth in NBA history for the most offensive rebounds in a single season if he’d played enough minutes to qualify.
Miami, meanwhile, has survived Herro’s absence thanks to strong play from summer acquisition Norman Powell, who arrived from the LA Clippers in exchange for Kevin Love, who had fallen out of the Heat’s rotation. The 32-year-old surely would have received Most Improved Player votes last season if he’d reached the 65-game threshold, and he’s been even better so far in 2025-26, averaging 26.1 points per game and canning 47.9% of his three-pointers. He’s hardly alone, though: Jaime Jaquez Jr. has emerged as an early Sixth Man of the Year contender and Andrew Wiggins is one of just 17 players with at least 12 steals and 12 blocks at this point in the season.
Knicks at Heat pick, best bet
In the Knicks’ win last Friday, several unsung heroes stepped up. Landry Shamet had 36 points off the bench, the best scoring performance of his eight-season career. Jordan Clarkson, who had been mostly an afterthought this season, had 24 points, and Josh Hart dropped a triple-double off of the bench. However, while it’s likely that New York won’t get 60 points from Clarkson and Shamet, it’ll likely get more than 15 points on six-for-21 shooting from Mikal Bridges and 14 minutes from Robinson, who snagged eight offensive boards in his limited time despite being in foul trouble. It’ll also have had practice time over the weekend to get its choice of Hart, Clarkson, and Shamet integrated into the starting lineup. By the same token, the Heat might get less than 38 points from Powell and 23 from Jaquez, but Wiggins should shoot better than six-for-18 from the field.
Even without Brunson and Anunoby, the Knicks will still have the best player on the floor in Towns, so as long as he plays his regular minutes load, New York should feel confident. Towns had his way on Friday night in his final game as a 29-year-old, finishing with a season-high 39 points and 11 rebounds, and he was able to play 38 minutes because he only picked up three personal fouls. If Miami is aggressive offensively, it should be able to relegate Towns to the pine, given that he’s ranked in the top 10 in fouls per game in each of the past six seasons. However, the Heat have drawn a below-average number of fouls this season, and their top offensive option, Powell, imparts damage more through his jumper than his slashing ability.
Without Adebayo, Miami’s defense has fallen apart, as it has allowed 130 or more points in each of the last four games, conceding the most points, rebounds, and fifth-most assists across that span while fouling the most times and forcing the sixth-fewest turnovers. To be fair, the Heat limited the Charlotte Hornets to 108 points without their defensive anchor, and opponents have been fortuitous to shoot the fifth-highest percentage on wide-open threes since Adebayo’s injury, but Miami has to do a better job preventing an aggressive Knicks offense from generating uncontested looks in the first place. It also has allowed the eighth-highest percentage at the rim, and New York has gotten to the rack at the fifth-highest rate. Towns hasn’t finished well around the rim this season, but he made at least two-thirds of his restricted-area tries in eight of his first 10 seasons, so he’s due for some good fortune.
The Knicks haven’t been great defensively either — they did allow 132 points to the Heat, after all — but with Robinson in the middle, they’ve managed to allow the fifth-lowest percentage from the restricted area. They’ve also gotten very unlucky from long distance, allowing the fifth-highest mark on uncontested triples despite allowing them at close to a league-average rate. New York should have done better not to allow five uncontested looks to Powell, but it also got unlucky that he canned three of them. The Knicks also need to commit fewer fouls, but Robinson is typically a disciplined player and hadn’t previously been whistled five times in a game since 2023.
All in all, between its hot shooting and Robinson’s foul trouble, Miami out-played New York on Friday relative to its usual standards and still lost because it was incapable of getting a stop without its defensive anchor. Perhaps going back to South Florida will help — the Knicks are winless on the road, and the Heat have the ninth-best net rating at home — but the sample size is small enough that it doesn’t overshadow the talent gap between the two teams. New York had a better record on the road than Miami had at home in 2024-25, and I like it to win its seventh game in its past eight.
