Takeaways from Heat’s loss to short-handed Hawks, and a look at the playoff implications
The Miami Heat’s inconsistent season continues.
After bouncing back from a three-game losing skid with a three-game winning streak, the Heat (31-29) ran into one of its most painful losses of the season. Miami fell to the short-handed Atlanta Hawks 118-103 on Friday night at State Farm Arena in a game full of playoff implications.
With a chance to move up in the Eastern Conference standings with a win, the Heat remained in seventh place in the East. Atlanta (33-27) clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker over Miami if the two teams finish with the same regular-season record.
“I hope not close at all because we got out butts handed to us,” Heat star wing Jimmy Butler said when asked how close Friday’s contest felt to a playoff game. “So we don’t want to pretend that that one was like a playoff game because if it was, we would be going home really, really early.”
The Hawks were without six players because of injuries, including its leading scorer Trae Young and leading rebounding Clint Capela.
Even without two of its best players, Atlanta’s offense was nearly unstoppable. The Hawks scored 118 points on 53.8 percent shooting from the field and 15-of-35 shooting on threes.
The Heat allowed more than 30 points in three of the four quarters.
Atlanta used a balanced offensive attack with key contributors out, as six Hawks players finished with double-digit points. Bogdan Bogdanovic led the way with a team-high 21 points on 5-of-9 shooting on threes, three rebounds and eight assists, and John Collins contributed 20 points and eight rebounds.
The teams combined for 123 points on 60.3 percent shooting from the field and 48.5 percent shooting from three-point range in the first half. With both defenses struggling, the Hawks entered halftime with a small one-point lead.
Atlanta expanded its lead to six entering the fourth quarter with another efficient period. The Hawks scored 33 points on 11-of-19 shooting from the field and 6-of-10 shooting on threes in the third quarter.
Then Atlanta limited Miami to 14 points in the fourth period to take control and increase its lead to as many as 16 points down the stretch.
“They just had us on our heels. I can’t actually explain it right now,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “That’s just as surprising to me as it is probably to everybody else out there. We made great strides with a formula to put ourselves in a position to win if we really defend and we just didn’t bring it at the end of the court. That’s taking nothing away from Atlanta. Atlanta played a very good basketball game and they took control of it in the second half.”
The Heat’s two best players, Bam Adebayo and Butler, combined for 35 points on 12-of-25 shooting.
Adebayo finished with 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting, three rebounds and five assists. Butler finished with 19 points on 6-of-13 shooting, two rebounds and seven assists.
The Heat now returns home to complete the back-to-back set Saturday night against the Chicago Bulls. Miami will play its next three games at AmericanAirlines Arena.
Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Hawks:
The Heat would have moved into fifth place in the East with a victory Friday. Instead, Miami remains in seventh place.
With the loss, the No. 7 Heat fell two games behind the No. 4 New York Knicks and No. 5 Hawks, and one game behind the No. 6 Boston Celtics.
Miami moved further into play-in tournament territory, with just 12 regular-season games remaining on its schedule.
The seventh-seeded Heat would be part of the play-in tourney if the season ended Friday after representing the East in the NBA Finals last season.
The play-in tournament will take place after the regular season and before the first round of the playoffs, and it will include the teams with the seventh-highest through the tenth-highest winning percentages in each conference. As of Friday, the East’s play-in tourney would include the No. 7 Heat, No. 8 Charlotte Hornets, No. 9 Indiana Pacers and No. 10 Washington Wizards.
Those play-in games would be May 18-21, a short turnaround from the Heat’s regular-season finale on May 16 against the Pistons in Detroit. The playoffs begin May 22.
The Heat’s defense is usually a strength, but it turned in one of its worst defensive performances of the season in an important game.
The Heat posted a defensive rating of 128.3 points allowed per 100 possessions, which is its seventh-worst single-game defensive rating of the season.
“I feel like we didn’t do enough efforts, make multiple efforts on defense,” Adebayo said.
The Hawks were efficient from pretty much every area of the court, finishing 19 of 22 at the rim, 5 of 11 on midrange attempts and 15 of 35 on three-point shots.
“We really just couldn’t guard the ball collectively as a group,” Heat guard Kendrick Nunn said. “I feel like we were switching a lot, but they just didn’t feel us tonight. We didn’t get into the ball enough. All areas, there was some missed rotations. It was a little bit of everything defensively.”
This defensive effort from the Heat was unexpected. Not only because Atlanta was missing its top scorer, but also because Miami owns the NBA’s sixth-best defensive rating and has been a top-10 unit for most of the season.
The Heat held its previous two opponents under 100 points before Friday’s slip up.
The Hawks got an unexpected contribution from guard Brandon Goodwin, who finished with 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting off the bench despite averaging five points per game this season.
Atlanta’s reserves outscored Miami’s bench 51-21 on Friday.
“I think when the game is on your terms, the basket seems bigger,” Spoelstra said of the Hawks’ efficient shooting. “They had some in the second half that we were there. But it was really more the opportunities in the paint, the free-throw line, the ones in transition just got them in a great team rhythm. You do have to credit them. They were getting to their game even with their guys out.”
The Heat’s offense was efficient for most of the game, but then the fourth quarter happened.
Even with Atlanta shooting 59 percent in the first half, Miami was able to keep pace by shooting 61.5 percent in the first two quarters to enter halftime down by just one point.
The Heat’s offense struggled to keep up with the Hawks’ hot shooting in the second half, though.
The Hawks continued its ultra-efficient pace with 57.9 percent shooting in the third quarter, compared to 45.8 percent shooting for the Heat in the period. The result: Atlanta won the quarter 33-28 to enter the fourth ahead by six.
But the Heat’s offense completely fell apart in the final period. Miami scored just 14 points on 3-of-16 shooting from the field and 0-of-6 shooting on threes in the fourth quarter, as Atlanta was able to win the period 23-14 to finish off the double-digit win.
Friday’s 14-point performance in the final quarter is tied for the Heat’s lowest-scoring fourth period of the season.
The Heat was the healthier team (by a lot) for Friday’s important game, but it didn’t matter.
Atlanta was without six players, including their leading scorer and rebounder.
Young, who’s averaging 25.3 points and 9.6 assists this season, missed Friday’s game after spraining his left ankle in Wednesday’s overtime loss to the Knicks.
Capela, who’s averaging 15.7 points and 14.7 rebounds this season, also was unavailable because of a back contusion.
The only other time the Hawks were forced to play without both Capela and Young this season was in a 14-point loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Jan. 24.
The Hawks were also without Kris Dunn (right ankle surgery), De’Andre Hunter (right knee soreness), Cam Reddish (right Achilles soreness) and Tony Snell (right ankle sprain) on Friday.
The short-handed Hawks used a starting lineup of Kevin Huerter, Bogdanovic, ex-Heat forward Solomon Hill, Collins and Onyeka Okongwu. This five-man group had not played together this season before Friday’s game.
Meanwhile, Miami had 15 of its 16 players available for the contest. Victor Oladipo was the only Heat player unavailable for the game.
Oladipo, who did not travel on the trip, has missed eight consecutive games with right knee soreness. He remains out indefinitely.
Nunn, who returned to the Heat’s rotation and starting lineup when Oladipo went out, continues to play well.
Nunn recorded a team-high 21 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field and 5-of-9 shooting on threes in 34 minutes Friday.
The second-year guard is averaging 15.4 points on 51.1 percent shooting from the field and 40.7 percent shooting on threes, 3.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists in the last eight games since rejoining the starting lineup in Oladipo’s place.
This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 9:59 PM.
