Jeremy Lin is just one part of the new-look Knicks. When Miami and New York last played, Carmelo Anthony and Baron Davis were sidelined with injuries. Now, Anthony and Davis are healthy, and the Knicks recently signed J.R. Smith.

“I’m sure they’re looking forward to competing at a high level, because now they’re finally starting to get healthy,” Chris Bosh said. “They have a little bit of momentum and a lot of excitement going on.”

In the teams’ first meeting on Jan. 27, the Knicks jacked up a season-high 43 three-pointers and made 18. Bill Walker, a career 38 percent three-point shooter, went 7 of 10 from beyond the arc.

“We’re more of a team,” Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni said. “We kind of survived last time because we hit unbelievable threes. We hit all kinds of threes and kind of stayed in the game. You can’t rely on that all the time. We’re much more cohesive, we’re better, we’ve got more talent.”

Getting defensive

While the Heat’s red-hot shooting and breathtaking pace might receive much of the credit for Miami’s seven-game win streak going into Thursday’s game, the Heat’s defense has slowly but surely become one of the league’s stingiest.

The Heat surrendered 100 points in two of its first four games and in four of its seven losses on the season. But during Miami’s win streak, the Heat held five opponents to 90 points or below. The improvement has bumped Miami into the top tier of the league in defensive efficiency. According to ESPN, the Heat’s 96.9 defensive efficiency mark is fifth in the NBA.

“[Defense] is our foundation, that’s the bedrock of what we do here in this organization, and we’ve been able to do it more consistently,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “At the beginning of the year we did it for stretches, and even sometimes long stretches, and we were able to create a lot of opportunities out of that. But the last two-and-a-half or three weeks, it’s been more steady. That’s what we want to look to continue the rest of the year.”

More depth

Last season, the Heat was in a similar position heading into the All-Star break, having won 10 of 11 games. The difference between last season’s team and this year’s team, according to Spoelstra, is the increased depth of the current team. Not only has Miami added Shane Battier and Norris Cole, but also Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller are healthy and contributing off the bench.

“We’re much deeper this year,” Spoelstra said. “It’s well-documented; we played the majority of the season without [Haslem and Miller] last year, and when they did come back they were a shadow of who they really were as players. This is the team we really anticipated.”