The Miami Heat visit the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday in a potential NBA playoff preview. Tipoff is at 8 p.m. ET and can be live streamed for free via the links provided below.
Cleveland has turned things around since the beginning of the season. After a less-than-impressive start, the Cavaliers sit second in the East with a 48-27 record. Compared to the beginning of the season, the Cavaliers also - for the most part - appear have a better understanding of how to play beside each other. In an interview earlier this week, point guard Kyrie Irving told an anecdote about when teammate LeBron James called him out for not tallying a single assist in the fourth game of the season, which seemingly helped Irving.
"He came up to me and was like, 'One, you can never have another game with no assists,'" Irving said, describing James' words, via the North East Ohio Media Group. "'You can damn near have just one, two, three, but you can't have zero.' And I was like, 'All right, cool, it won't happen again.' And it hasn't happened since that game."
The stats support it: Irving has recorded at least one assist in every game since that 102-100 loss at Utah.
The Cavaliers have growing chemistry, though, hasn't been a cure-all. Cleveland suffered a surprising 106-98 loss on Friday against Brooklyn, then narrowly escaped Sunday with an 87-86 win over Philadelphia.
Miami, meanwhile, is 34-40 and still very much alive in the playoff race despite the myriad injuries that have plagued the team. The Heat have alternated wins and losses since the end of March and come into Cleveland looking to bounce back from a 95-81 loss to San Antonio.
Watch the live stream HERE.
