Heat offense struggles without Kyle Lowry. Takeaways, details from overtime loss to Pacers
The Miami Heat defense was good, the offense was not.
In the end, the Heat (1-1) couldn’t overcome its offensive struggles as it fell to the Indiana Pacers 102-91 on Saturday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
The Heat, playing without starting point guard Kyle Lowry because of a sprained left ankle, shot just 38.5 percent from the field, 9 of 33 (27.3 percent) on threes and committed 22 turnovers. Miami finished with just 18 assists.
The 91-point outing snapped the Heat’s 19-game streak with at least 100 points, which is the longest such streak in franchise history.
“You have to credit Indiana,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They came out with some energy and disruptiveness and some of the details of what we do waned at times. We just made some plays that were not characteristic of what we normally do. But you do have to credit their defense for a lot of that.”
Miami trailed by as many as 12 in the first half and entered halftime in a 10-point hole. But the Heat’s defense was good enough to push the game into overtime.
The Heat eventually rallied to take a six-point lead in the fourth quarter behind its defense, which limited the Pacers to just 30 points on 30.8 percent shooting in the final two quarters of regulation.
The two teams traded blows in a fourth quarter that included six lead changes. The Heat and Pacers combined to miss the final four shots of regulation as the game went to overtime.
Indiana (1-2) controlled overtime, opening the extra period on an 11-2 run to take a nine-point lead.
The Heat never bounced back despite a 30-point performance from sixth man Tyler Herro, who took 28 shots with Lowry out.
The Pacers, which were playing on the second night of a back-to-back set, outscored the Heat 16-5 in overtime to escape with the victory.
Heat star Jimmy Butler struggled to get on track offensively, finishing with 19 points on 7-of-22 shooting, six rebounds, six assists and four turnovers.
“We just got to do better sharing the ball and getting guys to their spots,” Butler said. “A lot of that is on me, honestly, whenever Kyle is not out there playing. There’s no excuses, the game was definitely within reach. We just got to figure out a way to win it.”
The Heat now returns home for a matchup against the Orlando Magic on Monday night.
Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Pacers:
Lowry didn’t play after spraining his left ankle in the season opener, and the Heat’s offense looked different without him.
After scoring 137 points on 53.1 percent shooting and 28 assists while committing only 11 turnovers to post an offensive rating of 128 points scored per 100 possessions with Lowry available in the Heat’s season-opening win on Thursday, it was a totally different story against the Pacers.
The Heat’s offense looked out of sorts without Lowry, committing more turnovers (22) than assists (18) and scoring at a pace of only 84.3 points per 100 possessions. That’s Miami’s worst single-game offensive rating in the regular season since a 124-86 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Jan. 15, 2019.
“That’s a factor,” Spoelstra said when asked how Lowry’s absence affected the Heat’s offense. “But we should be able to function, at least be able to get into offense and get the ball where it needs to, get the shots that we want up even without him.”
Vincent, 25, started in Lowry’s place against Indiana. Making the eighth start of his NBA career, he finished with just two points on 1-of-3 shooting, three assists and three turnovers in 25 minutes.
Vincent was called to the bench with 7:16 left in the fourth quarter and never re-entered.
Spoelstra used a lineup that included Herro, Duncan Robinson, Butler, P.J. Tucker and Bam Adebayo in overtime.
When is Lowry returning? Spoelstra didn’t have a definitive timetable following Saturday’s loss.
“All this stuff, I’m not going to make a prediction now,” Spoelstra said. “We have to see how he feels after the flight and get back to Miami, and we’ll go from there.”
Lowry, 35, turned his ankle during Thursday’s season opener. The hope is that Lowry’s injured ankle is a short-term issue, with the Heat now entering an off day before resuming its schedule Monday against the Magic.
The Pacers were without Caris LeVert (sore back), Kelan Martin (hamstring strain) and T.J. Warren (navicular fracture) on Saturday.
The Heat’s defense was a dominant force in the loss, especially in the third quarter.
The Pacers scored just eight points on 4-of-17 shooting from the field and 0-of-6 shooting on threes while committing eight turnovers in the third quarter. It’s tied for the fewest points that the Heat has allowed in a third quarter in franchise history.
The fewest points Miami has allowed in any non-overtime quarter in franchise history is six in a win over the Chicago Bulls on Nov. 6, 1993.
“That was really inspiring,” Spoelstra said. “The third quarter, we really came out with great toughness and multiple efforts, the urgency, the communication, all of it. This is the identity that we want. On the road, that’s what you want to do.”
For the game, the Pacers scored 102 points on 39.2 percent shooting from the field and 10-of-39 (25.6 percent) shooting on threes. Miami posted a defensive rating of 96.2 points allowed per 100 possessions in the loss.
The Heat finished with a 7-2 record last regular season when allowing 97 points or less per 100 possessions.
The ongoing evolution of Adebayo was again on display, with his improved rebounding making an appearance.
Adebayo finished with 17 points and 16 rebounds, but shot 6 of 15 from the field and committed five turnovers.
Adebayo’s rebounding is encouraging, though, because the Heat is aiming to be a better rebounding team this season after struggling in that department last season. Adebayo has averaged 14.5 rebounds in the first two games after averaging nine rebounds last season.
“Very important,” Adebayo said of his rebounding. “I’m trying to break UD’s record. But I feel like as a big man and looking at the path that UD took, I should be able to average 10 rebounds. Somebody like UD who’s undersized at the center spot used to average 10 rebounds. So for me, I have to average 10 or more because I’m going to hear it after the game and over text and on the plane.”
The Heat finished last regular season with the NBA’s ninth-worst rebounding percentage at 49.1 percent, second-worst offensive rebounding percentage at 24 percent and 12th-worst defensive rebounding percentage at 73.3 percent.
Through two games this season, Miami owns the NBA’s second-best rebounding percentage at 55.5 percent.
With Vincent starting in place of Lowry, the Heat’s bench rotation remained intact and Herro remained hot.
Just like the season opener, the first four players off Miami’s bench were Herro, Dewayne Dedmon, Max Strus and Markieff Morris. And they were the only four Heat reserves used Saturday.
After totaling 75 bench points in the opener, the Heat’s reserves combined for 39 points against the Pacers. But Herro scored 30 of those points while shooting 12-of-28 from the field and 3-of-12 on threes, and grabbing 10 rebounds in 41 minutes.
Herro is the first player in franchise history to record at least 30 points and 10 rebounds in a game off the bench, according to ESPN Stats & Info. The 28 shot attempts is also a career-high for Herro.
“We want him to be aggressive,” Butler said. “He took all shots that he thinks he can make. I’m not mad at that at all. We want him to stay aggressive, we want him to stay confident because we’re going to need him to be that way throughout the year.”
Herro, who averaged 22.4 points on 51.3 percent shooting from the field and 44.8 percent shooting on threes in the preseason, has carried his strong play from the exhibition schedule into the regular season. He has averaged a team-high 28.5 points through the first two regular-season games.
The Heat begins the regular season with a road-heavy schedule and Spoelstra said “everybody is aware” of the challenge ahead.
With Saturday’s matchup against the Pacers marking the start of a 41-game stretch that includes 26 road games, the Heat knows it will be tested over the next two-plus months. That 41-game span runs all the way through Jan. 12.
“You want to set the tone for it. Everybody’s aware,” Spoelstra said. “The first piece of it is nine out of 14 on the road and then you get to that. It starts with your first step and having the right mentality to weather a lot of different things on the road. You have to have that collective toughness.”
The schedule balances out on the back end, with 13 of the Heat’s final 18 games coming at home.
This story was originally published October 23, 2021 at 9:49 PM.
