The defending champion Miami Heat travel to the nation's capital on Tuesday evening to take on the Washington Wizards in NBA preseason action at the Verizon Center. The 3-0 Heat, who haven't had a winning preseason in nine years, will look to remain undefeated, while the 0-2 Wizards will try to pick up their first win of the off-season. Scroll to the bottom of the page to hit the live streaming link when it airs at 7pm EST on NBA TV.
The Heat last had a winning record in the offseason in 2004-2005, but in all that time they've also won three championships. Head coach Eric Spoelstra told the South Florida Sun Sentinel after his team's 82-75 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats that he still saw value in the good start to the eight-game preseason. "We've talked about our habits," Spoelstra said. "We reveal our character every single night in different circumstances." The preseason has largely been a way for Miami's frontcourt - a relatively weak spot for the defending champs, who nearly saw themselves muscled out of the playoffs against a beefy Indiana Pacers team last season - to put in a bit of extra work. Dwayne Wade sat out the game against the Bobcats, and LeBron James has been used sparingly.
Washington Wizards 6-foot-11-inch big man Nenê won't be there to do battle against the Heat frontcourt either after he remained in Brazil for personal reasons following an exhibition game on Saturday with the Chicago Bulls. The game was the NBA's first in the country, where a crowd of about 15,000 assembled to watch. Afterward, the Wizards did an unusual bit of touring, visiting the Complexo do Alemao, a shantytown on the north side of Rio de Janeiro which was once one of the most violent neighborhoods in Rio but which police moved to take over a few years ago. Brazil is preparing to host the 2014 World Cup and Olympics and has seen itself contending with questions about how secure its cities are.
Wizards fourth-year guard John Wall has said that he thinks his team could break the decade-long playoff drought in the nation's capital. Wall, who has just signed a new maximum contract, says he'll be writing the word "playoffs" on his shoes before every game this year. "Every game pair is going to have 'playoffs' on it. That's my main determination...I should be in the playoffs," he told Bleacher Report. Catch the action as it live streams at 7pm EST here.
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