Orlando Magic @ Miami Heat

Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images

The Orlando Magic will look to extend their winning streak to three games when they take on the Miami Heat on Thursday night. Both the Orlando Magic and the Miami Heat are coming off wins over the Toronto Raptors by nearly identical scores with the Heat winning 115-95 and the Magic taking down Toronto 118-99.

Tip off from American Airlines Arena is set for 8:00 pm EST. The game will be shown nationally by TNT. As always, if you can’t watch the game, you can hear it locally on WDBO 580 AM and in Spanish on WONQ AM 1030.

The Line: Magic – 4

Starters:

Orlando

Dwight Howard
Rashard Lewis
Mickael Pietrus
Vince Carter
Jason Williams

Miami

Jermaine O’Neal
Michael Beasley
Quentin Richardson
Dwayne Wade
Carlos Arroyo

Update: Quentin Richardson is active and dressed tonight.

In the last meeting between the two teams, Orlando came from behind in the fourth quarter to take a late lead before ultimately losing on a put-back of a Dwayne Wade air ball by Michael Beasley.

Throughout the years, Dwayne Wade has absolutely torched the Magic. Wade has averaged more points per game against the Magic (30.3) than he has against any other team in the NBA, but that hasn’t really hurt the Magic. Orlando has won 12 of their last 14 games against Miami.

The key for the Heat will be if they can a contribution from someone other than Dwayne Wade. In Miami’s win over Orlando November 25, the Heat had five players score in double figures. The most likely candidate to share the scoring load with Wade is former #2 overall pick Michael Beasley. Beasley is coming off a career-high 28 points against the Raptors on Tuesday night and his confidence should be at an all-time high. Beasley is averaging 15.6 points per game and 7 rebounds per game.

The 12-11 Heat are a middle of the road team in most statistical categories, which should come as no surprise because they are a .500 ballclub.

The Heat average 97.8 points per game and rank 14th in offensive efficiency. Miami’s offense starters and ends with Dwayne Wade, who is averaging 26.7 points per game, 6 assists per game and 5.3 rebounds per game.

Miami ranks 18th in defensive efficiency. The Heat have struggled to defend the 3-point line, especially against the Magic. That’s good news for Orlando considering they are an elite 3-point shooting team and are coming off of a game in which they hit 14 3-pointers.

The Heat outrebounded the Magic the last time these two teams met, which was a bad omen, considering the Magic are usually a much better rebounding team than the Heat. Orlando ranked seventh in the league in rebounding rate while the Heat are just 18th. Jermaine O’Neal had 16 rebounds in the game.

If the Magic don’t want to give the Heat a 2-0 series lead, they will need to play defense like they did in the second half of the last two games and avoid silly mistakes that allow opponents to stay in the game.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger and a contributor at NFL Mocks Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)