Heat’s comeback falls short. Takeaways and a look at what happened against the Raptors
The Miami Heat couldn’t become the first team to defeat the Toronto Raptors three times this season. In fact, there aren’t many teams that have found a way to beat the Raptors since January.
In its second of eight seeding games, Miami rallied from a 17-point third-quarter deficit but couldn’t complete the combeback in a 107-103 loss to Toronto on Monday afternoon at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista.
The Raptors (48-18), which own the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, have won 23 of their past 27 games — a stretch that began Jan. 15.
The Heat (42-25), which is 1-1 to start its seeding schedule, won its first two meetings against the Raptors this season before Monday’s defeat.
“We knew going into this that this game would take a complete 48 minutes,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “I would say they probably played more consistently over the course of 48 minutes than we did.”
Toronto looked to be on its way to a double-digit victory, ahead by 17 with 6:46 remaining in the third quarter. But Miami pushed back, using a 41-21 run to take a three-point lead with 7:33 to play.
Trailing by six with 1:35 to play, the Heat rallied again to pull within one point with 41.4 seconds remaining.
But two costly turnovers in the final 20 seconds hurt Miami at the end.
Down by one with a chance to take the lead, Goran Dragic’s pass bounced off of Jimmy Butler’s hand and out of bounds with 17.4 seconds to play. And down by two with a chance to tie or take the lead, Butler’s pass was deflected and stolen by Fred VanVleet with 7.4 seconds remaining.
Pascal Siakam then made two free throws to give the Raptors a four-point lead to seal the win.
“That’s basketball,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s two late-game turnovers. “You have the ball in those two guys’ hands and you live with the results. I liked the opportunities on both of them. Sometimes, the defense has something to say about that. ... You hear that it could be a make-or-miss league, but it could be something like that also, as well.”
VanVleet led the way for Toronto with a game-high 36 points while shooting 8-of-16 from the field, 7-of-12 on threes and 13-of-13 from the free-throw line. Siakam contributed 22 points, six rebounds and three assists.
The Heat doesn’t have much time to think about Monday’s loss, though. Miami will complete its lone back-to-back set during seeding games Tuesday against the Boston Celtics at 6:30 p.m. (Fox Sports Sun, TNT).
Five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Raptors on Monday at HP Field House ...
The Heat usually wins games behind the three-point ball. But on Monday, one could say the Heat lost the game in part because of its three-point shooting after a slow start.
Miami, which has shot an NBA-best 38.3 percent on threes this season, missed 31 of its 45 attempts (31.1 percent) from deep against Toronto. The Heat has struggled this season when it can’t make threes at a rate close to its usual standard, as it’s now 1-13 this season in games that it shoots worse than 32 percent from three-point range.
The Heat’s rally was powered by the three-ball, as it made 9 of its final 20 threes of the game. But it just wasn’t enough to overcome a 5-of-25 shooting start from deep.
“I felt like we were just missing shots. We were getting good looks,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “We were just missing shots. That’s the bottom line.”
The Raptors’ defense definitely deserves credit, especially considering that it owns the NBA’s second-best defensive rating. But the Heat also missed a number of open threes throughout the game.
“Those looks were wide open,” Spoelstra said. “I’ll have to check the film, but there were a lot of them that we missed where there wasn’t a defender near us. But they’re good. They cover ground. They really do protect the paint. You have to be extremely disciplined to make the right play and make the right read. I was good with those looks in the first half. In the second half, we started to knock some of those down.”
It was obvious that Toronto was determined to take Miami sharpshooter Duncan Robinson out of the game, as he finished with three points on 1-of-4 shooting from deep. Robinson, who is tied for the second-most made threes in the league this season at 247, is averaging 3.7 three-point makes on 8.3 three-point attempts per game.
“It hinders us because Duncan is one of the best shooters in the NBA,” Adebayo said of Robinson’s limited looks. “I feel like we got so caught up in the game that we didn’t even realize that Duncan had only taken four shots. That can’t happen to our best shooter.”
It didn’t help that the Heat attempted only 16 free throws Monday. That’s well below the Heat’s season average of 25.2 free-throw attempts per game, which is the fourth-most in the NBA.
Miami made 15 of its 16 free throws, but Toronto dominated the battle from the foul line. The Raptors, which shot 33 of 36 from the charity stripe, outscored the Heat by 18 points at the free-throw line.
The three-point shot and free throw have been extremely important to Miami’s offense this season. And the Heat just couldn’t leverage those strengths as much as it would have liked to against the Raptors on Monday.
The Heat went with a similar rotation to the one it used in Saturday’s seeding opener against the Denver Nuggets. And the bench was really impressive, led by Dragic and Kelly Olynyk.
The same five players began the game, as Spoelstra used the Kendrick Nunn-Butler-Robinson-Jae Crowder-Adebayo lineup to start Monday for the second consecutive game.
The Heat’s bench rotation was similar to the one it used Saturday, too. Dragic, Andre Iguodala, Olynyk and Tyler Herro were the first four players used off of Miami’s bench, with Derrick Jones Jr. entering as the fifth reserve.
Center Meyers Leonard, who started his first 49 games with the Heat this season, received his second consecutive DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) — the only two games he has not played in when active this season.
Olynyk continued to solidify his spot in the Heat’s rotation, finishing Monday’s loss with 17 points on 4-of-11 shooting on threes, four rebounds and two assists in 31 minutes.
Dragic was even better, though, with 25 points on 9-of-14 shooting, five rebounds, five assists and two steals in 28 minutes. He scored 20 points in the second half.
“He was fantastic,” Spoelstra said of Dragic. “He did it from everywhere on the floor. Pick-and-rolls, in transition, in the post. That’s exactly what he is, a veteran playoff experienced point guard.”
The Dragic-Olynyk combo was the catalyst behind the Heat’s comeback, as Miami outscored the Raptors 43-25 in the 11 second-half minutes those two players together. For the season, the Dragic-Olynyk duo is a plus-147.
Herro was solid off the bench, too, with 12 points, five rebounds and three assists in 25 minutes.
With Dragic and Herro playing well, Nunn was limited to just 16 minutes of action. Nunn struggled Monday, with two points on 0-of-7 shooting.
Miami’s bench outscored Toronto’s reserves 56-22.
Butler’s status for Monday’s game was up in the air after he missed Sunday’s practice with an “excused absence.” But the All-Star wing was able to play against the Raptors.
Butler finished with 16 points on 4-of-9 shooting, seven rebounds, five assists, two blocks and two steals in 33 minutes. Nine of his 10 made shots during Miami’s first two seeding games have come from inside the paint.
The Heat’s other All-Star, Adebayo, contributed 10 points, eight rebounds and four assists against the Raptors. With Toronto throwing one of its best defenders OG Anunoby on him, Adebayo was limited to just nine shot attempts.
“I think we had Jae going because Marc Gasol was guarding Jae,” Adebayo said. “So Jae was going. We all had to sacrifice. I sacrificed my touches for Jae. That’s what you got to do for a team.”
Why did Butler miss Sunday’s practice? Spoelstra declined to comment when asked that question before Monday’s game. The good news for Miami is that Butler was available against Toronto, and there is no long-term doubt regarding his availability moving forward.
Although Jones has played in the first two seeding games, he has been used in a much smaller role than the one he had before the shutdown.
Jones logged 12 minutes of court time Saturday against the Nuggets and just 16 seconds of playing time Monday against the Raptors.
Dragic, Iguodala, Olynyk and Herro have been used ahead of Jones to start seeding games. The Heat, in essence, went with a nine-man rotation against the Raptors.
This is a very different role than the one Jones, 23, was playing before the hiatus. He logged 31 minutes and 30 minutes of court time, respectively, in the Heat’s final two games before the shutdown.
The Heat’s four healthy inactives Monday: Kyle Alexander, Solomon Hill, KZ Okpala and Chris Silva.
But with every player on the roster healthy, Spoelstra has had to make difficult rotation decisions. So far, Leonard and Jones are the two rotation regulars who have had their roles diminished.
Monday marked the start of a very challenging stretch for the Heat, and there isn’t much time to rest.
The Heat’s game against the Raptors began a string of three consecutive games against the top three teams in the East — Monday vs. No. 2 Toronto, Tuesday vs. No. 3 Boston and Thursday vs. No. 1 Milwaukee Bucks. And those three games come in a span of just four days.
It’s not like it gets much easier for the Heat on the other side of this three-game stretch. Three of Miami’s final four seeding games come against teams that have already clinched a playoff spot — two games against the Indiana Pacers on Aug. 10 and 14, and a matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Aug. 12.
Only one of the Heat’s eight seeding games come against a team that is currently out of the playoffs — a Saturday matchup against the Phoenix Suns. But the Suns are off to a strong start at Disney, winning their first two seeding games.
As for the current East standings, Miami is still in fourth place — 2.5 games behind No. 3 Boston and one game ahead of No. 5 Indiana.
“We know it’s back-to-back and we need to bring our best game tomorrow and try to correct those things that we did today,” Dragic said of Tuesday’s matchup against the Celtics. “Tomorrow’s going to be a fun game. We’re playing against one of the best teams in the East. Looking forward to that challenge.”
▪ One postgame item worth noting: NBA referee David Guthrie told a pool reporter following the game that a fourth-quarter flagrant foul on Olynyk shouldn’t have been called.
The Flagrant 1 call was made on Olynyk with 6:56 to play. The Raptors ended up scoring four points on the possession, turning a 92-92 tie into a 96-92 lead.
The Heat never led the rest of the way.
“So on that play, at replay, Olynyk, we judged that he took an aggressive swipe and he made some contact into the facial area of Kyle Lowry. At replay, in my judgement, I felt like that did meet the criteria for a flagrant foul,” Guthrie said to a pool reporter.
“After reviewing that more postgame, and thinking about it a little bit more, to me, it now is more of a natural basketball play going for the ball and that the contact really did not rise to the criteria of a flagrant foul.”
This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 4:25 PM.
