First Heat loss of the season, but here’s why it has still been an encouraging start
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 116-109 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves (3-0) on Sunday at Target Center ...
1. Despite the loss, it has still been an encouraging start to the season for the shorthanded Heat (2-1).
With four-time All-Star Jimmy Butler missing the Heat’s first three games of the season due to the birth of his daughter, Miami still found a way to get out of this stretch with a 2-1 record. The only loss came on the second night of a road back-to-back against an undefeated Timberwolves team, and the Heat actually led by as many as 10 points in the third quarter.
A look at some numbers: Through the first three games, the Heat owns the league’s 13th best offensive rating and ninth-best defensive rating. The offense has been encouraging to begin the season, especially after coming out of last season below average in almost every offensive category, including 26th in offensive rating. Coach Erik Spoelstra would probably say the defense has to be better, but add Butler to the mix and it’s not crazy to predict the Heat to finish with a top-five defense.
It’s the emergence of the Heat’s young players that has been most encouraging, though. Justise Winslow is averaging 19 points, 9.3 rebounds and 6.7 assists. Bam Adebayo is averaging 15.3 points, 11 rebounds and 5.3 assists. Then there are rookies Kendrick Nunn (22.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists) and Tyler Herro (12 points, six rebounds and 1.7 assists).
“We don’t make any excuses here,” Heat forward Duncan Robinson said when asked about playing without Butler. “Whether he’s with us or not, we’re going to compete and do everything we can to try to get a win. I think it brings confidence for some guys just being kind of thrown under the fire a little bit. I think we learned a little bit about ourselves on this brief trip.”
The hope is that Butler will return and make his Heat regular-season debut in Tuesday’s home game against the Hawks. Miami knows what it’s going to get from Butler, and it’s starting to learn what it can expect from the young players around him.
“He’s our guy,” Spoelstra said of Butler, when asked about the plan for Tuesday. “He’ll play. I’m not planning on resting him.”
2. The rise of Kendrick Nunn has been one of the biggest revelations in all of the NBA to start the season.
The undrafted guard who spent his first professional season in the G League with the Santa Cruz Warriors is proving he belongs in the NBA. His first three NBA games: 24 points, 18 points and 25 points against the Timberwolves. Nunn’s 67 total points to start the season is the most by a Heat player in his first three NBA games, surpassing Michael Beasley’s 51 points to begin the 2008-09 season.
Nunn, who finished Sunday’s loss with a team-high 25 points on 9-of-17 shooting in 40 minutes, leads all NBA rookies in scoring this season. His 22.3 points per game average is ahead of second-place RJ Barrett’s 21 points per game.
“Kendrick has just been pretty steady all the way through,” Spoelstra said.
The Heat’s decision to sign the 24-year-old Nunn to a two-year contract on the final day of the 2018-19 regular season looks to be a very smart one. Not only does he look like one of Miami’s top scoring threats, but he is on a team-friendly deal that has him making $1.4 million this season and $1.6 million next season.
But Nunn was held scoreless in the fourth quarter Sunday on 0-of-3 shooting.
“Part of that is them seeing that he was scoring pretty efficiently and treating him with a lot more respect in the second half, particularly in the fourth quarter,” Spoelstra said of Nunn’s quiet finish. “And to be fair, I’m not making an excuse, but he has played big minutes in both of these games.”
3. The Heat found a way to limit Timberwolves All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns down the stretch, but it was Andrew Wiggins that hurt Miami late in Sunday’s game.
Wiggins, who was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 draft, scored 16 of his team-high 25 points in the fourth quarter. He made 4-of-5 threes in the final period after going 0-of-7 from deep over Minnesota’s first two games of the season.
“As soon as he got a couple easy ones in semi-transition drives — that kind of thing — even though he had not hit threes before this game,” Spoelstra said of Wiggins’ big fourth quarter. “If you’re a scorer, you see the ball go in, you start to get some rhythm, now you can become a lot more dangerous.”
Meanwhile, Towns ended the night with 23 points on 8-of-21 shooting, 11 rebounds and four assists. After scoring 15 on 6-of-10 shooting in the first quarter, he was held to eight points on 2-of-11 shooting over the final three quarters.
Towns entered averaging 36.5 points and 14.5 rebounds over the Timberwolves’ first two games.
Heat center Bam Adebayo deserves most of the credit, as he defended Towns for most of the game.
“It was a much higher sense of urgency,” Spoelstra said of the Heat finding a way to slow down Towns as the game went on. “This guy is a big-time scorer. He was averaging 37 before we got into the game, and we didn’t treat him with that kind of urgency and respect. We were late with our helps and disruptions, and things of that nature. He makes it tough. ... But our team defense and focus on making it a little bit more challenging for him was much higher in the second half.”
4. This was Heat forward Duncan Robinson’s best NBA game.
Robinson, who was under a two-way contract with the Heat last season, finished Sunday’s loss with a career-high 21 points with the help of a career-high four made threes.
“It’s a milestone in some respects,” Robinson said. “But there’s a lot more hopefully where that came from. You want to do something like that in a winning effort and not a loss. I wish I could have made a few more plays down the stretch just to help us win. I’m just getting more and more comfortable, and hopefully my confidence will just continue to grow.”
After making just 11 of 39 threes in the preseason and 1-of-5 threes in the season opener, Robinson has found his shot. He made 7 of 12 threes over the two-game trip.
5. The Heat was shorthanded again, and Spoelstra was forced to tweak the rotation.
With forward Derrick Jones Jr. unavailable because of a left groin strain suffered during Saturday’s win over the Bucks, the Heat was left with 12 available players. Along with missing Butler and Jones, forward James Johnson and guard Dion Waiters also did not make the trip.
Johnson is still working on his conditioning and Waiters is not expected to rejoin the Heat until Monday after serving his one-game suspension in Wednesday’s opener for conduct detrimental to the team.
Veteran Heat forward Udonis Haslem was available for the first time this season, though, but did not get in the game. Haslem missed the first two games with a sprained left wrist.
With a shorthanded roster, Spoelstra played two-way contract rookie forward Chris Silva for 11 minutes and also used rookie forward KZ Okpala for a minute of action.
“I have confidence in our guys,” Spoelstra said. “I think more than anything, it’s good for them to go through that to see how they can be used. Even a guy like KZ or Chris being thrown in there, these are important minutes and just to make the most of those minutes. That might just be a short stint and it might be based on who’s out there. So I want our guys to understand that every single game if you’re in uniform, you can get thrown in there because I have confidence in them and the team has confidence in them.”
With G League training camp beginning Monday, two-way contract guard Daryl Macon traveled to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to join the Heat’s developmental affiliate following Sunday’s game. Silva is expected to remain with the Heat for now, with Miami still missing a few rotation players.
