Pacers at Heat
THE STORY: Seemingly on cruise control coming out of the All-Star break, the Miami Heat have had to cope with a few games too close for comfort lately. They narrowly avoided a third consecutive loss by edging Atlanta 89-86 on Wednesday. Miami seeks its 12th consecutive home win and fifth in a row over Indiana when the Pacers visit Saturday night. Miami dominated the first two meetings, winning 118-83 on Jan. 4 and 105-90 in Indiana on Feb. 14.
TV: 7:30 p.m. ET, FS Indiana (Pacers), Sun Sports (Heat)
ABOUT THE PACERS (23-14): Indiana will try to work leading scorer Danny Granger into a more productive game. He had just nine total points on 3-of-17 shooting in the first two games against Miami. “We’ve just got to understand you’re going to have bad nights in the NBA and we happened to have two bad nights the two times we played Miami,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel. True, but the Pacers also have lost six in a row to teams with winning records.
ABOUT THE HEAT (30-9): While Miami’s previous 11 wins had all been by at least a dozen points, LeBron James was singing his team’s praises after Wednesday’s close victory over the Hawks. “We needed one of these games,” James said. “It’s about time we had one of these games where we had to fight for every minute, all the way down the stretch. … It was good for us to close this game out.” Miami has won eight of nine against Indiana and took advantage of 23 turnovers resulting in 28 points to hand the Pacers their worst loss of the season the last time the teams played in Miami.
BUZZER BEATERS:
1. The Heat shot 0 for 10 on 3-pointers, their first time without a make from beyond the arc in 456 regular-season games.
2. Miami point guard Mario Chalmers has 960 career assists, tying Steve Smith for 10th place in franchise history.
3. Indiana is 22-3 when scoring at least 90 points, but one of the losses was to Miami.