OKC Thunder host East threat Miami Heat: game preview

The OKC Thunder prepares to take on one of the best team’s in the league in the Miami Heat. Gameday breaks down the match.

The OKC Thunder faces the Miami Heat who are in hot form, coming off a victory against the San Antonio Spurs. The Heat have also won six of their last ten matches, boosting them up to second place in the East.

On the other hand, OKC is recovering from a near impressive 30 point come from behind win against Toronto on Wednesday, but also go into this game with some tough injuries.

Miami is 10-11 on the road while they have the best home record of 18-1 in the NBA. The Thunder will look to capitalize on this being at Chesapeake Energy Arena in front of a roaring home crowd.

Turnovers and trouble getting into an offensive rhythm disturbed OKC against the Raptors, so this is one thing the team will be looking to repair. But most importantly they’ll have to prevent themselves from getting into bad situations where they are playing catch-up.

OKC has proven that they will fight until the very end so if they bring the same vitality straight from tip-off they will be hard to contain.

Miami Heat rookie Kendrick Nunn had an awesome game against the Spurs with a game-high 33 points. He will be one to watch as his team has a considerably young starting five just like the Thunder so it will be interesting to see how they match up.

Both teams have the exact same defensive rating of 107.5 but the Heat are ahead in offensive rating with 110.9. Either way, it will be a contest on both sides of the floor.

With that being said, here are the keys to the game.