The Cleveland Cavaliers and the Miami Heat are playing on the NBA basketball schedule on Monday night and the ESPN game is from AmericanAirlines Arena as LeBron James comes back to South Beach and the matchup is streaming on the WatchESPN website past 8 pm ET as the King takes his former court and this comes as the Cavs are one of the top teams in the east.
James and the Cavaliers have been on a tear since he got back from an injury and the team now is in first place in the central division. The Bulls are playing without Derrick Rose and while that makes them less of a contender, the team still is tough and they remain in the mix for the division. Kyrie Irving comes into the game playing at a high level and the Cavs last won over the Magic on the road on Sunday.
The team comes in for a road game against Miami and they will next be back home on Wednesday when they host the Brooklyn Nets. The team comes in after getting 33 points from Irving in the game against the Magic and they got eight rebounds and 13 assists from James. This season James has turned things on in the second half and he is pushing the Cavs towards the top of the east with a little while left on the schedule before the playoffs start.
The Cavaliers come into things ranked sixth in the league in scoring and 11th in points allowed and that is much better than where they were after the first two months of the season. Miami has just 29 wins this year and they come in after losing to the Toronto Raptors on the road. The team has the Portland Trail Blazers at home after playing the Cavaliers and they come into things at fourth in the southwest division this season.
The Heat got 25 points from Dwyane Wade against the Raptors and 12 rebounds from Hassan Whiteside, but it was not good enough to get the win. The team is ranked 28th in scoring this season and seventh in defense and they have not quite been able to recover from losing James to Cleveland. James is tops on Cleveland with 26 points per game, while Wade is leading Miami with 21 points per contest.
Kyrie Irving has had some great performances this season, including scoring 57 points against the San Antonio Spurs. James is coming back to Miami again and it comes after he went to the finals with the team in four straight seasons and now they are struggling to just make the playoffs. James scored 30 points in Miami on Christmas and in that game Wade scored over 30 points. Now the two former teammates will matchup again in South Beach.
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