Heat off to its best five-game start since Big 3 era. And Kendrick Nunn keeps opening eyes
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 106-97 win over the Atlanta Hawks (2-3) on Thursday at State Farm Arena. The Heat moved to 4-1 to start the season.
1. Kendrick Nunn continues to open eyes.
The Heat’s undrafted rookie guard scored a career-high 28 points on 10-of-15 shooting in 33 minutes Thursday. Nunn’s 112 points to begin the season is the most through five games by an undrafted player in NBA history, surpassing Connie Hawkins’ 105 points to begin 1969-70.
In addition, according to ESPN Stats & Info, Nunn is the first NBA player with 100 points in his first five career games since Kevin Durant in 2007-08 (113).
Over the first five games of the season, Nunn is averaging 22.4 points while shooting 51.8 percent from the field and 48.4 percent on threes, 2.4 rebounds and 2.6 assists. He has posted the second-best plus-minus on the team at plus-41, behind only Justise Winslow (plus-47).
“Those guys out of Chicago are real,” Heat wing Jimmy Butler said when asked about Nunn. “I heard about the kid, I’ve watched film on him, I know what he likes to do as a player. I want him to keep doing that. I always tell people all the time, my job is to help win and to help get guys big pay days. He’s on his way to one.”
Nunn, 24, leads all NBA rookies in scoring this season. His 22.4 points per game average is ahead of second-place Jaxson Hayes’ 19 points per game.
“He’s just taking advantage of all the opportunities, and he’s playing within the concepts of team basketball,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Nunn. “He was super efficient tonight.
“Kendrick is not Tyler’s age. He’s a 24-year-old young rookie veteran, but he’s very steady. Today he played off the ball, even though he was our point guard. But he played off of action from Jimmy [Butler]. Got some great screens from Meyers [Leonard] and he had a great moment to help us get a win.”
Nunn went undrafted in 2018 and spent his first professional season in the G League before he was signed by the Heat on the final day of the 2018-19 regular season. Nunn continues to insist his immediate NBA success comes as no surprise to him.
“No surprise to me. Just another day at the office,” Nunn said. “... I knew from years ago that I was one of the better players. All I needed was the opportunity.”
2. Butler turned in one of the best five-point performances you’ll ever see.
In his second regular-season game with the Heat, Butler finished with just five points on 2-of-10 shooting. But he also recorded nine rebounds, 11 assists, six steals and three blocks in 35 minutes.
The Heat outscored the Hawks by 21 points in Butler’s 35 minutes.
“To tell you the truth, that was winning basketball today,” Butler said of his stat line. “Like I tell everybody, I’m only here to win. I’m not here to score 50 or get a triple-double, whatever it is. Nah. At the end of the day, they brought me here to win. My teammates need me to continue to make winning plays on both ends of the floor. As long as we win, we’re good.”
In his first two regular-season games in a Heat uniform, he has averaged 13 points on 33.3 percent shooting, seven rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4.5 steals and 1.5 blocks. Miami has outscored its opponent by a total 36 points over the two games Butler has played in.
The scoring numbers will improve as the season goes on, but the all-around numbers are what you would expect from a four-time All-Star wing like Butler.
“One of the great qualities about Jimmy Butler is the fact that he can have a game like this, five points, 11 assists,” Spoelstra said. “But more importantly than that, he wants those guys to play well. When your star player is feeding you the ball and giving you confidence and telling you not to defer, these young guys feel like they can conquer the world.
3. This is the Heat’s best five-game start to a season since the Big 3 era.
Before this season, Miami had not begun with a 4-1 record since it started the 2012-13 season with a 4-1 record. That was seven years ago.
It’s a small sample size, but the Heat has posted the league’s sixth-best net rating in the NBA to start the season. Miami’s schedule gets a little tougher now, with a Sunday matchup against the Houston Rockets up next and then a looming three-game West Coast trip next week.
4. Turnovers have been an issue for the Heat to start the season, but not on Thursday.
The Heat entered averaging a league-high 22.5 turnovers over its first four games, and Spoelstra called cleaning up the turnovers “a big emphasis.” Miami found a way to solve the issue for at least one game, finishing its win over the Hawks with just 14 turnovers.
Following a turnover-free first quarter, the Heat didn’t commit its first turnover of the game until there was 10:28 remaining in the second quarter.
“It doesn’t matter how long you do it for, you have to be intentional about trying to correct something,” Spoelstra said. “Everybody took ownership of that. We do have quite a few playmakers, so you have to be purposeful with what you’re doing with the ball and not cavalier when you’re making decisions that are important for the team. Today, even with the shootaround there was a short period of time that we worked on offense and we only had two turnovers with that. That’s something we’ll have to really remedy for our offense to go to another level.”
5. Forward James Johnson was on the active roster for the first time this season Thursday, but he did not play.
Johnson spent the past month working toward meeting the team’s conditioning standards regarding body fat and weight. He was sent away on the eve of training camp on Sept. 30 and did not return to the team until Oct. 11 after failing to meet the Heat’s conditioning requirements.
Since then, Johnson has been a part of practices, but not games. That changed after Spoelstra said Wednesday that Johnson would travel with the team to Atlanta because he “made his requirement.”
While Johnson was in uniform against the Hawks, he did not get in the game. The Heat used a nine-man rotation, with Udonis Haslem and Johnson as the only healthy players who did not play in Atlanta.
“I’ll have to read the game. Like I said yesterday, I’m not going to force it,” Spoelstra said in advance of Thursday’s game when asked if Johnson would play against the Hawks. “But we do have some changes in our rotation with Derrick Jones being out. We’ll see, we’ll see if he’ll be ready. I can’t guarantee he’ll play. I’ll just have to read the game. But if his number is called, he does have the corporate knowledge of how we play and what’s expected.”
The Heat was without Winslow (lower back stiffness), Derrick Jones Jr. (strained left groin), KZ Okpala (strained left Achilles), Dion Waiters (coach’s decision) and Daryl Macon (G League assignment). With Winslow out, the Heat moved Duncan Robinson into the starting lineup.
The Heat don’t seem overly concerned about Winslow’s back injury, as Spoelstra labeled it as a day-to-day issue.
