{"id":499488,"date":"2025-12-27T17:57:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T17:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/499488\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T17:57:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T17:57:12","slug":"game-preview-heat-return-home-to-face-beleaguered-pacers-hot-hot-hoops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/499488\/","title":{"rendered":"GAME PREVIEW: Heat return home to face beleaguered Pacers &#8211; Hot Hot Hoops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1057\" height=\"704\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-27-9.03AM-edited.jpg\" alt=\"Heat Pacers\" class=\"wp-image-13600\"  \/>The Miami Heat (Mandatory Credit: Michael Reaves\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>While it doesn\u2019t look like it on the surface, the Miami Heat\u2019s 15-point win over the Atlanta Hawks was a good win. Miami got back to its identity, without two of its players in Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, snapping a three-game skid.<\/p>\n<p>Though it will have a quick turnaround on Saturday night, the second night of a back-to-back, facing the reeling, beleaguered Indiana Pacers inside Kaseya Center. Tip-off is expected to be at 8:00 p.m. EST.<\/p>\n<p>The Pacers are also facing the second night of a back-to-back. Indiana was dealt a 140-122 loss at home to the Boston Celtics, its seventh-straight loss. Led by Jaylen Brown\u2019s 30-point effort and Payton Pritchard\u2019s 29-point effort, the Celtics shot 56.6 percent while burying 20 triples.<\/p>\n<p>Dating back to Tyrese Haliburton\u2019s achilles tear in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, they have been crushed by injury all season. The Pacers own the worst record in the East at 6-25; meanwhile, the Heat enter 16-15 with sole possession for the No. 8 seed.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday\u2019s contest between the two teams will be their first of three meetings this season \u2014 including the only one in Miami, Fla. They split the four contests last season. The Heat are 3-2 in games on the second night of a back-to-back, while the Pacers are 2-3.<\/p>\n<p>Injury Report (at the time of this publishing):<\/p>\n<p>Indiana Pacers:<\/p>\n<p>NOT SUBMITTED AT TIME OF PUBLISHING.<\/p>\n<p>Miami Heat:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NOT SUBMITTED AT TIME OF PUBLISHING.<\/p>\n<p>Projected Starting 5 (subject to change):<\/p>\n<p>Indiana Pacers:<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Nembhard, G<\/p>\n<p>Bennedict Mathurin, G<\/p>\n<p>Quenton Jackson, G<\/p>\n<p>Pascal Siakam, F<\/p>\n<p>Jay Huff, C<\/p>\n<p>Miami Heat:<\/p>\n<p>Davion Mitchell, G<\/p>\n<p>Norman Powell, G<\/p>\n<p>Pelle Larsson, F<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Wiggins, F<\/p>\n<p>Kel\u2019el Ware, C<\/p>\n<p>Broadcast Info:<\/p>\n<p>Tipoff: 7:00 PM EST<\/p>\n<p>TV: FanDuel Sports Network Sun (Eric Reid &amp; John Crotty)<\/p>\n<p>Radio: AM 560 Sports WQAM &amp; The HEAT Radio Network (Jason Jackson)<\/p>\n<p>Spanish Radio: WAQI 710 AM &amp; The HEAT Spanish Radio Network (Jos\u00e9 Pa\u00f1eda)<\/p>\n<p>Come back to Hot Hot Hoops at game time to join our GameThread and chat about the game live with other Heat fans!<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p>To check out our other content, click\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hothothoops.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Twitter\/X\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hothothoops?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Instagram\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/hothothoops?fbclid=PAAaZK-uxa3cMPUQcM2z6aGmK3faJ-G1R7YKtEOcPJNPO4VwfOvw1epBIoCyk_aem_Ad_aZ7zQwWkfVN5rHfd0UkIWrYEnU4j4Ulz0SRK__Qt1738L-NeQ3cZC5voFks7V6K8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Check out Hot Hot Hoops on Facebook\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/1GUQbKhsRp\/?mibextid=wwXIfr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our YouTube channel\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/hothothoops\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Heat (Mandatory Credit: Michael Reaves\/Getty Images) While it doesn\u2019t look like it on the surface, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[63687,8457,7,144,63689,70520,113,126,3866,58046,70521,6,114],"class_list":{"0":"post-499488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-2025-26-miami-heat-game-preview","9":"tag-2025-26-miami-heat-season","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-heat","12":"tag-heat-game-preview","13":"tag-heat-pacers","14":"tag-indiana","15":"tag-indiana-pacers","16":"tag-indianapacers","17":"tag-miami-heat-game-preview","18":"tag-miami-heat-indiana-pacers","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-pacers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115792828531520869","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}