Adebayo: ‘It don’t get no worse than this.’ Takeaways from Heat’s painful loss to Cavaliers
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 125-119 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers (16-41) on Monday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse ...
1. The Heat (36-21) allowed the team with the worst record in the Eastern Conference rally from a 22-point deficit for a comeback win. As big man Bam Adebayo said, “It don’t get no worse than this.”
Just two nights after earning a 19-point win over the struggling Cavaliers at AmericanAirlines Arena, the Heat suffered a six-point overtime loss to the Cavaliers in overtime. And the way it unfolded made it, arguably, Miami’s worst loss of the season.
With the Heat leading 97-75 with 1:28 remaining in the third quarter, Cleveland outscored Miami 50-22 the rest of the way.
The Heat’s offense was efficient over the first three quarters, with 99 points on 55.2 percent shooting from the field and 14-of-27 shooting on threes entering the fourth. But then Miami stopped making shots, shooting 7 of 29 from the field and 2 of 15 on threes during the fourth quarter and overtime.
As the Heat’s offense sputtered, its defensive issues began to be exposed as the Cavaliers played three bigs down the stretch with Larry Nance Jr., Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love on the court together for all but 12 seconds of the fourth quarter and overtime.
Cleveland, which owns the seventh-worst offensive rating in the NBA, made 17 of its 30 shots (56.7 percent) during the fourth quarter and overtime. Rookie guard Kevin Porter Jr. led the comeback, scoring 15 of his game-high 30 points during this stretch.
“I feel like when we miss a couple of shots in a row and they score, that’s when it starts,” Adebayo said. “When we’re missing shots, how do we keep our defense set up. Force them to miss, to get stops.”
The Heat’s defense has been a concern for most of the season, as it now owns the 14th-best defensive rating in the NBA. Miami has finished with a top-10 defense in four consecutive seasons, with the last time it finished outside of the top 10 coming in 2014-15 when it posted a 37-45 record.
“They shut us down on offense and we just didn’t play defense,” guard Goran Dragic said. “They took [Andre] Drummond out and they were switching everything. We didn’t get no triggers. But the offense is not our problem. We scored 119 points. It’s like [Udonis Haslem] said, the defense is the problem.”
As expected, Heat players were visibly frustrating following the loss. Haslem could be seen leading a discussion on one side of the locker room when reporters entered for post-game interviews.
“It sucks. It’s frustrating. But we’re going to find solutions,” rookie guard Kendrick Nunn said. “That’s what we’re about. We’re going to go back and watch film and get on to the next one.”
2. In addition to squandering a 22-point lead to one of the league’s worst teams, the Heat’s road struggles also continued.
With Monday’s loss, the Heat fell to 13-18 on the road for the season. Over the past 15 games away from home, Miami is 4-11 with losses to sub-.500 teams like the Washington Wizards, New York Knicks, Sacramento Kings, Atlanta Hawks and Cavaliers included in that stretch.
“It’s not shocking,” Adebayo said of the Heat’s losses to inferior teams on the road. “We’re bad on the road. And we’ve got to figure it out. And until we figure it out, we’re going to keep losing to teams on the road.”
But Miami is a dominant 23-3 at home this season. So, what’s the difference?
The Heat is just a better offensive and defensive team at AmericanAirlines Arena. Miami is scoring 116.3 points per 100 possessions at home compared to 108.2 points per 100 possessions on the road, and allowing 105.9 points per 100 possessions at home compared to 111.3 points per 100 possessions on the road.
In other words, the Heat is one of the NBA’s best teams at home. But Miami turns into an average to below average team on the road.
“It looks and it sounds like a broken record,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Either myself or Bam or UD or whoever, Jimmy [Butler], you want to bring anybody in here and talk after one of these road games, we all sound the same. We have an idea every game on the road what it tends to be: When the shots go dry, do we have the ability to sustain defensively and get enough stops to change the momentum.
“You can’t always count on making 19 threes, or doubling up what we did in the first half, 12 threes. And the ball was going in. But we gave up a 35-point second quarter, already saw some signs of an inability to sustain a great effort in the first quarter. The thing about the road is we pay the price for it.”
3. Adebayo did all he could to try to lift the Heat to a win in Cleveland.
Without Jimmy Butler (personal reasons), Tyler Herro (sore right ankle) and Meyers Leonard (sprained left ankle), Adebayo was the Heat’s leading man on Monday. Adebayo finished just short of his fourth triple-double of the season, with 22 points, 13 rebounds, nine assists, three steals and four blocks.
In the 41 minutes Adebayo was on the court, the Heat outscored the Cavaliers by seven points. But in the 12 minutes Adebayo was on the bench, Miami was outscored by 13 points.
4. The Heat has had a lot of success turning undrafted players into quality rotation players. But Duncan Robinson is one of Miami’s best finds.
Even in the loss, Robinson continued to make threes at an efficient rate. The second-year forward finished with 15 points on 5-of-11 shooting on threes.
Robinson, 25, ranks fourth in the NBA with 202 made threes this season.
With Robinson hitting his 200th three on Monday, he became just the fourth player in league history to make 200 or more threes in their second NBA season. The other three names on that list are Kyle Korver (226 made threes in 2004-05), Damian Lillard (218 in 2013-14) and Klay Thompson (211 in 2012-13).
With Robinson on pace to finish with 290 made threes this season, he’s on track to set a new record for most made threes by a second-year NBA player. He’s also on his way to setting a new Heat record for most made threes in a season, as Wayne Ellington currently holds the record with 227 threes in the 2017-18 season.
5. Looking for some good news? Well, eight of the Heat’s next 10 games come at home.
For a team that is dominant at home and struggles on the road, that’s a good thing. Miami begins a five-game homestand Wednesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“It will be a good stretch for us because we’re known to be a good home team,” veteran wing Andre Iguodala said. “Teams, they know that now. So they know they got to come with extra energy as a road team against us. So we’re going to get some good battles versus some teams. We can’t just think we’re at home, so we’re going to win the game. ... We’ll see if these five games can kind of boost us going forward when we do get back out there on the road.”
In fact, 15 of the Heat’s final 25 regular-season games will come at AmericanAirlines Arena.
Still, somehow Miami must turn things around on the road before the playoffs. It’s essential, and coaches and players know it.
This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 12:56 AM.
