Heat at Celtics
If the sports fans in New England are looking for a distraction in the hours leading up to the Super Bowl, then the NBA has them covered with the Boston Celtics hosting the Miami Heat on Sunday afternoon. The Heat lost Dwyane Wade to a hamstring injury earlier in the week but are breaking in a new star in center Hassan Whiteside, who turned heads with 24 rebounds in a loss on Friday. Whiteside posted a triple-double the last time Miami played on a Sunday afternoon.
Whiteside’s 16 points and 24 boards could not make up for the rest of his teammates combining to go 22-of-77 from the field in the 93-72 home loss to the Dallas Mavericks. The Heat took a 12-point lead into the break before managing 27 points in the second half to fall for the fourth time in six games. The Celtics are coming off a 93-87 loss to the Houston Rockets on Friday in which they experienced a similar problem, scoring 42 points in the first half and never quite pulling out of an 18-point hole.
TV: 1 p.m. ET, Sun Sports (Miami), CSN New England (Boston)
ABOUT THE HEAT (20-26): Miami, which was missing forward Luol Deng in addition to Wade on Friday, let a 16-point lead slip away when the Mavericks took off on a 37-2 run. Wade is expected to be out until at least the All-Star break and fellow All-Star Chris Bosh failed to pick up the slack in his first chance to carry a bigger load with 12 points on 5-of-18 shooting, including four points in the second half as the team fell apart. The Heat failed to reach 90 points in nine of their 13 games in January and are tied for 28th in the league in scoring average (92.7 points).
ABOUT THE CELTICS (16-29): Boston had its first moderately successful Western Conference road trip of the Brad Stevens era with a 3-3 mark on its trip but did not have the spark in the first half during the return home Friday. "We just didn't start the game off with energy," forward Tayshaun Prince told ESPNBoston.com "Obviously, a team like Houston, when you let them spread the ball around and get aggressive, it's hard to stop them offensively." Miami is beginning a stretch of four straight games against teams with sub.-500 records.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Wade, Bosh and Whiteside all sat out a 100-84 home win over the Celtics on Dec. 21.
2. Boston G Avery Bradley is 1-of-11 from 3-point range in the last two games.
3. Deng (calf) has missed the last two games and is day-to-day.