
When Dwyane Wade has been good, so has Miami. But when he's been off, so are the Heat.
On Tuesday night, Wade will try to continue his recent stretch of brilliant shooting as Miami hosts a Golden State Warriors team that's given up plenty of those this season.Miami (14-12) goes for its third win in a row following a 106-103 victory over New Jersey on Saturday, when Wade hit 13-of-22 shots and tied a season high with 43 points. Wade scored 35 on 13-of-25 shooting in an 89-87 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night, and that came after Miami's three-game slide from Dec. 12-15 when he averaged 17.7 points on only 33.9 percent shooting.
"That's just basketball," said Wade, who leads the league with 28.8 points per game. "Sometimes you are going to struggle. Sometimes you are going to be in the zone. You just have to stick with it. There was a three-game skid of not shooting the ball well. I just kept at it, and it eventually turned around. It's now two games in a row where I've felt very comfortable."
That was the case on Dec. 1 in Oakland as Wade scored 37 points in a 130-129 overtime victory over the Warriors. In four career home games versus Golden State, Wade is averaging 27.8 points, 6.3 assists and 3.3 rebounds.
In Miami's 14 victories this season, Wade is averaging 32.6 points and shooting 55.0 percent from the field, compared to 24.5 points and 41.8 percent in the 12 losses.
On Saturday, he scored 12 of Miami's last 14 points.
"Obviously, Dwyane made some incredible plays and shots at the end," said Heat rookie coach Erik Spoelstra, whose team is 5-9 this season in games Wade scores fewer than 30. "On defense, we got some stops when we really needed them."
Golden State, meanwhile, has not. While Miami has held eight of its last 11 opponents to fewer than 100 points, the Warriors have allowed 115.6 per game during their current 1-6 stretch.
Golden State (8-21) is last in the NBA, allowing an average of 111.9 points.
In Monday's 113-81 loss to Orlando, the Warriors - the league's second-highest scoring team at 105.5 points per game - scored their fewest points since an 89-81 loss to Philadelphia on Nov. 23.
Coming off a 50-point night at Charlotte on Saturday, Jamal Crawford scored a team-high 18 on Monday but missed 14 of 21 shots as Golden State hit a season-low 31.9 percent from the field.
"We got shots we're used to making, but we pretty much struggled from the field the whole night," said Crawford, who scored 40 against the Heat in the first meeting this season.
The Warriors, which allowed Orlando to shoot 48.2 percent from the field, is among the league's worst in field-goal defense at 47.0 percent.
Rookie Anthony Morrow had 13 points and fellow first-year player Anthony Randolph had 11 and 12 boards as Golden State lost for the 15th time in 18 games.
In its last visit to American Airlines Arena on March 7, Golden State defeated the Heat 134-99.