Tempers flared in Miami’s win over New Orleans the other night, as a result Jimmy Butler got a one game suspension which will keep him out of tonight’s game. The Heat have been in a positive groove lately winning 4 of their last 5 games and finally finding some consistency. They have a chance to sweep the regular season series against the Kings here, after beating them 115-106 in the first meeting in South Beach a little over 3 weeks ago. There’s also positive news on the injury front for Miami with Terry Rozier, Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro all getting upgraded to probable. They’ll need everyone they can get to beat a feisty Kings team, in the last 13 meetings Miami has covered the spread just 4 times. However, they do have a positive win record in the last 7 meetings, winning 5 of those games.
Sacramento comes into this one following a heroic win over the LA Clippers last night 123-107 on the road. It was a much needed win for the Kings, who made sure to send out a message that they were overlooked in the All-Star selections last weekend as none of their players made it to Indianapolis. De’Aaron Fox dropped 33 points in the win, while Domantas Sabonis notched a triple-double with 17 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists. Playing on a 2nd night of a back-to-back will be tricky though, even if the trip from LA to Sacramento is a relatively short one. The Kings are just 4-4 SU in 8 games with no rest this season, interestingly enough they started 0-4 SU and proceeded to win their next 4 such games. Unlike Miami, they have only 2 players on the injury report, so they’re the healthier team coming into this game.
