Takeaways from one of the Heat’s worst offensive nights at home this season. What went wrong?
The Miami Heat hasn’t lost much at home this season. But when it has, it has come against one of the league’s top teams.
The Heat (32-15) fell to the Boston Celtics 109-101 on Tuesday at AmericanAirlines Arena to close its five-game homestand with a 3-2 record. Miami dropped to 21-3 at home this season, with its losses coming against the 36-10 Los Angeles Lakers, the 33-14 Los Angeles Clippers and the 31-15 Celtics.
The Celtics led for most of the game, but the Heat — playing on the second night of a back-to-back — kept it close most of the way. Miami cut the deficit to five points with 2:43 to play, but Boston closed on an 8-5 run to erase any hopes of a Heat comeback.
Gordon Hayward led the Celtics with 29 points on 10-of-14 shooting and nine rebounds. Jaylen Brown contributed 25 points on 10-of-16 shooting from the field and 4-of-8 shooting on threes.
Next up for the Heat is a Saturday road game against the Orlando Magic.
Five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Celtics ...
1. The Heat’s offense looked out of rhythm against a quality Celtics defense.
This was an intriguing test for the Heat, which entered with the league’s seventh-best offensive rating. The Celtics entered with the league’s fourth-best defensive rating.
Boston won the battle, taking Miami’s offense out of a lot of the actions it usually gets to. The biggest indication of that? The Heat assisted on 15 of its 33 made baskets. Miami entered averaging 25.3 assists per game this season.
Bam Adebayo (one assist) and Jimmy Butler (two assists) combined for just three assists. The duo has combined to average 11.1 assists per game this season.
The Heat also shot just 37.1 percent from the field and 9 of 37 on threes, season-worsts in both areas at home. Miami’s most efficient offense came from the free-throw line, where it finished 26 of 31.
“I have to credit Boston and their defensive game plan and effort,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We were pretty flat offensively. ... Their defense really jammed us up and that’s two games now they have done that to us. We are better than this, but you have to be very detailed and focused. The little things matter against a good defensive team like this. Their guys kept us from keeping our normal ball movement and triggers where we can go from good to great.”
Miami scored at a pace of 103.1 points per 100 possessions in Tuesday’s loss, which is the second-worst offensive rating it has finished a home game with this season. The Heat’s worst home offensive performance came when it scored 84 points in a victory over the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 2.
“They did a great job switching, being physical, taking everybody out of rhythm,” Butler said of the Celtics’ defense. “I will say they did a great job at that.”
Adebayo finished with 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting and 10 rebounds. The rest of the team combined to shoot 33.3 percent.
But Heat guard Goran Dragic was strong off the bench, with 23 points on 6-of-14 shooting from the field and 10-of-11 shooting from the free-throw line. Butler ended the night with 20 points on 5-of-14 shooting from the field and 10-of-12 shooting from the free throw line.
It was a rough night for rookie guard Tyler Herro, who finished with six points on 3-of-13 shooting from the field and 0-of-4 shooting on threes.
2. Heat guard Kendrick Nunn missed his third consecutive game with bilateral Achilles soreness, and Dion Waiters was again in the rotation.
With three team-issued suspensions helping delay Waiters’ season debut to Friday’s loss to the Clippers, he played in his third straight game Tuesday. Waiters was the fourth Heat reserve used, as he finished with 11 points on 4-of-11 shooting and five rebounds in 18 minutes.
Waiters even logged 11 minutes in the fourth quarter of a close game Tuesday, but he went scoreless on 0-of-4 shooting in 11 minutes in the period.
What’s the latest update on Nunn’s injury? Spoelstra said Nunn is “doing a ton of treatment and a little bit of activity. This will be a good stretch coming up.” That stretch Spoelstra referenced is the three-day break the Heat has before its next game Saturday against the Magic in Orlando.
3. The Heat’s starting group was spectacular in Monday’s win over the Magic. On Tuesday, not so much.
With Nunn out, the Heat started the Herro-Butler-Duncan Robinson-Adebayo-Meyers Leonard combination for the third consecutive game. Just 24 hours after posting a plus/minus of plus-21 in Monday’s victory, this lineup didn’t have much success against the Celtics.
Boston opened the game on an 8-0 run and built a 17-10 lead before Miami made its first substitution. The start of the second half wasn’t much better, as the Celtics outscored the Heat 12-9 to open the third quarter before Spoelstra turned to the bench. At the end of the night, the lineup finished Tuesday’s game as a minus-11.
For the season, this five-man group is a plus-16.
With the Heat’s bench outscoring the Celtics’ reserves 45-18, the starters’ struggles cost Miami. Boston’s starters outscored Miami’s starters 91-56.
4. With the Celtics using a lot of small lineups, Heat center Kelly Olynyk received his fifth DNP-CDs (did not play, coach’s decision) of the season.
Spoelstra opted to play athletic rookie forward Chris Silva ahead of Olynyk on Tuesday. With Silva taking Olynyk’s spot in the Heat’s 10-man rotation, Olynyk did not play.
Silva finished with one point, five rebounds and three steals in 10 minutes.
Other than Miami’s starting lineup that featured Leonard and Adebayo, it used a lot of small lineups against Boston. The Heat played with just one big man on the court for most of the game, and even 6-7 forward James Johnson logged a few minutes at center in the first half.
5. Who will be the head coach who represents the Eastern Conference in next month’s All-Star Game? Raptors coach Nick Nurse is now the frontrunner.
The two All-Star head coaches are chosen by a best-record scenario, meaning the coach of the teams that are first in their respective conference two weeks before the All-Star Game (games played through Feb. 2) earns the honor. But a coach can’t participate two years in a row.
The Milwaukee Bucks own the top record in the East, and second place isn’t even close. But Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer is not eligible to coach in the All-Star Game this year because he did so last year. That means the coach of the team with the second-best record in the East will represent the conference.
The Raptors currently hold the second spot in the East, one game ahead of the third-place Heat and 1.5 games ahead of the fourth-place Celtics. Toronto has three games (Thursday at Cleveland Cavaliers, Friday at Detroit Pistons, Sunday vs. Chicago Bulls) to play before Sunday’s cut-off date and can clinch Nurse’s spot in the All-Star Game with two wins in its next three games.
“I think this kind of competition and the context of games brings something out of you,” Spoelstra said of facing teams close in the standings. “This is what you’re in this game for, to find out who your team can become. I mentioned probably a month ago that the East has been criticized for so many years for not having the depth and talent of teams. And you can’t make that case this year.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 10:39 PM.
