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The Miami Heat forced their Eastern Conference semi-final series against the Toronto Raptors and will now hit the road in an attempt to wrap things up. Join The Roar for live scores from 5:30am (AEST).
This series has gone back and forth with no real direction and the Raptors, with home court advantage will be kicking themselves that it has gone to seven games. At the same time so will the Heat, who were up 2-1 after three games with home court in Game 4.
In Game 6, with the Heat under all sorts of pressure at home to try and extend the series to seven games, it was the usual trend that continued itself with DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry lining up shot after shot, but more often than not missing, although Lowry had an improved performance.
After Toronto managed to pull it out of the fire in Game 5, the same simply wouldn’t happen in Game 6. DeRozan scored 23 points, shooting just 8 of 21 from the field while Lowry had 36, shooting 12 of 27.
The problem for the Raptors is not the amount of points they scored during Game 6 – there are almost no problems with that. It was the shooting percentage each of them had, and the very poor options they often took in offence only totalling five assists between them.
In fact, the whole team only had 10 assists so some of that blame must be put on the inside men who were simply not creating options.
From a Miami point of view, it was all positive with Dwayne Wade not being the man delivering a majority of their offence for a chance. It was Goran Drajic who top scored with 30, shooting above 50 per cent from the field, while Wade added 22. The obvious difference in team play is the key there though, with Miami having 15 assists.
While Wade didn’t dominate on offence, his defence did. He came up with three blocks and two steals, and as the game went further on it became clear the impact it was having – particularly on DeRozan.
Looking ahead, the winner of this game will take on the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals. With the Cavaliers looking to be in some absolutely red-hot form, it may not even matter who wins this match – in the sense that they may be off for a sweep against Cleveland.
Prediction
Toronto might be at home, but they struggle with playoffs basketball and the Heat should get the job done on their solid team offence and defence of Wade.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores of this match from 5:30am (AEST) and don’t forget to add your own comments in the section below as the action unfolds in Toronto.
Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryd