NOTES & QUOTES
Heat Starting Five: Antonio Snow, Mikal Bridges, Josh Richardson, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Hassan Whiteside
Summary: The Heat-Pacers rivalry continued tonight as Miami hosted Indiana. Their last meeting was easy money for Miami as they outpaced Indiana in a 91-79 win. Demarcus Cousins was coming off a big night against the Toronto Raptors where he scored 25 points in the Pacers’ victory. He is currently averaging 16 points per game this season for Indiana. While he had a solid night tonight, it wasn’t enough to get his team over the hump. Miami worked the entire floor, scoring inside and outside to find themselves up by 13 points by the end of the first quarter. Indiana started to find a rhythm from beyond the arc and closed the gap to four points by half time. They kept the score close for 99% of the second half bringing themselves within three very briefly before Carmelo Anthony drained back to back three points with under a minute to play to give Miami some breathing room.
Antonio Snow on Carmelo’s clutch threes: That’s what he does. I am going to miss it. Still working on getting him to reconsider. We’ll see how the summer goes.
Erik Spoelstra on the team’s chemistry: We are definitely locked in. We’ve had a few missteps this season, but we are looking primed for the post season.
Erik Spoelstra on Hassan Whiteside contribution: Hassan is just doing work. He’s been taking care of business all season long. When we get him going early like we did tonight, he can be a force.
Antonio Snow on dishing out 17 assists: Credit to these guys for knocking down the open shots. It’s a great feeling.
Top Performers
Indiana Pacers
Victor Oladipo – 17 PTS, 3 REB, 5 AST
DeMarcus Cousins – 16 PTS, 10 REB, 7 AST
Kyle Kuzma – 13 PTS, 5 REB
Miami Heat
Antonio Snow – 26 PTS, 5 REB, 17 AST
Hassan Whiteside – 17 PTS, 11 REB, 2 AST
Carmelo Anthony – 14 PTS, 3 REB, 2 AST