Heat vs. Cavaliers: Cleveland Ready to Hand Miami Massive Loss
The Miami Heat will face a tougher test on Wednesday night against the Cleveland Cavaliers than expected.
LeBron James' former team is in the midst of a 22-45 season, while James' current team is looking to rewrite record books.
The Heat are devouring teams right now, having won 23-straight games and running away with the Eastern Conference.
The Cavaliers are also without their top scorer and assister, Kyrie Irving, and without their top rebounder, Anderson Varejao.
But they will win despite all that.
The Cavaliers have proven a resilient bunch in the way that they have dealt with injuries. Since Varejao played his last game on December 18, the Cavaliers have gone 17-24. While that isn't eye-popping, it is leagues better than their 5-20 record when Varejao played.
A large part of that improvement was the play of Irving, who is now also out. Since he last played, the Cavaliers are 1-3, but have played better than that record reveals.
All three of those losses have come either on the road or to playoff teams. In their March 16 matchup in San Antonio, the Cavaliers nearly shocked the Western Conference leading Spurs, but ultimately fell short, losing 113-119.
Various players stepped up in that game. Five Cavaliers scored more than 15 points that night, including the team's second-leading scorer Dion Waiters, who added 15.
They got good play out of their bench that night, as Wayne Ellington and Marreese Speights scored a combined 40 points.
The Achilles' heel for Cleveland that game was their rebounding. They got owned on the glass, as they grabbed just 29 boards while the Spurs got 32.
The good news here is that the Heat are the worst rebounding team in the league, averaging just 38.5 boards per game. Cleveland will be able to keep the rebounding battle closer, which will allow them to keep things close.
The two games during the Heat's winning streak that have been the tightest came against teams missing big players.
The Orlando Magic, who lost to the Heat 97-96 on March 6, were without two of their best players. One of them was J.J. Redick, who was the team's second-leading scorer this season before getting traded to Milwaukee. The other was Glen Davis, third on the team in scoring and second in rebounding, who has been out since February 1 with a broken foot.
The other team that gave the Heat a scare was the Boston Celtics, whom the Heat narrowly beat on March 18, 105-103. The Celtics have been without Rajon Rondo, who was leading the league in assists before a torn ACL ended his season, and Kevin Garnett, who leads the Celtics in rebounds and is second in scoring, due to injury and illness.
The Cavaliers can take a similar approach as those two undermanned teams did, and keep things close against the Heat. With home-court advantage as an added bonus, the Cavaliers will have enough to shock the world and end the Heat's winning streak in LeBron's former home.
