Andy Murray looks to The Heat Wave for inspiration against Bernard Tomic in the Sony Open Murray's pre-match preparation will include watching his favourite basketball team, the Miami Heat, as they look for a 25th consecutive victory on Friday night. In Florida, this unbeaten run, which stands just nine matches short of the all-time record, has been dubbed "The Heat Wave." As a Miami resident for about three months of the year, Murray has become a keen basketball fan. He even referred to LeBron James, the Heat's biggest star, during an interview last summer as an example of "someone who had come close a lot of times" before finally winning the national championships. James then replied with a good-luck tweet before the Wimbledon final, saying "Honoured by the shout out." It might sound as though Murray is going native, but then he has always rejected suggestions that he could relocate entirely to Florida, as so many British golfers have, and thus cut back on his tax bill. Neither has he mastered his own slam-dunk on the basketball court, although he does occasionally perform the tennis version popularised by Pete Sampras. At 6ft 5in, and with a languid way of loping around the court, Tomic looks as though he would make a decent basketball player himself. The great Australian hope of his generation, he has talent to burn, but a way of finding himself in awkward predicaments - most notably when he is driving his bright orange supercar. To this point in his career, Tomic has earned more speeding tickets than ATP titles. Murray has previously raved about Tomic's "funky" way of building a rally. He often uses as many slices, dinks and touch shots as he does conventional topspin drives, and sometimes this heady brew turns out to be too clever for his own good. But Tomic has been playing with more discipline this year, and has beaten some handy players, including the huge-serving South African Kevin Anderson to lift the Sydney International title. Tomic has won one match already at Crandon Park, beating the French qualifier Marc Gicquel in straight sets on Thursday. But this is also familiar ground for Murray, who practises through the winter on the very same court where he will be playing on Saturday. "I think that should help," he said on Thursday. Murray also welcomed the prize-money increase offered by the US Open this week as "a big step forward." Tournament administrators have promised to double the prize fund to $50million (£33million) by 2017 - a move that, to his mind, "reflects how valuable the players are to the events just now."