Takeaways and details from a dominant performance from the Heat’s defense against the Nets
It’s still very early, but the Miami Heat is quickly earning the attention of the Eastern Conference’s best.
After opening the season with a blowout win over the defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks, the Heat (3-1) earned a hard-fought 106-93 road win over the East favorite Brooklyn Nets (2-3) on Wednesday night at Barclays Center.
It was a competitive game that included 12 lead changes. But the Heat’s defense led the way, as Miami won despite shooting just 39.6 percent from the field.
“It feels good to be able to win games knowing that you’re not making shots,” Heat wing Jimmy Butler said. “I feel like we have a group that prides themselves on getting stops. Everything is not going to be all good every single night. But when you do got dogs, they’re always going to find a way to win and we got a couple of them that just love to go out there and play bully ball.”
The Heat led by as many as 12 in the first half, but the Nets closed the second quarter on a 22-8 run to enter halftime with a two-point lead.
The Heat responded by scoring 14 straight points in the third quarter to pull ahead by six and never trailed in the final period. When the Nets cut the lead to three with 6:08 to play, the Heat closed the game on a 16-6 run to secure the quality win.
With the Heat’s defense continuing its strong start to the season, the potent Nets offense shot just 38.8 percent from the field. Kevin Durant finished with 25 points on 9-of-18 shooting and James Harden finished with 14 points on 4-of-12 shooting for Brooklyn.
Bam Adebayo scored a team-high 24 points and grabbed nine rebounds.
Butler finished with 17 points, 14 rebounds, seven assists, one block and four steals.
Kyle Lowry recorded nine points, six rebounds and nine assists.
“It’s a building process. We’ve got to keep chipping, keep collecting these wins,” Adebayo said. “Because when we get to the end of the season, that’s when they matter. So we’re trying to not let any of these slip away.”
The Heat now returns home for a matchup against the Charlotte Hornets on Friday night.
Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the Nets:
The Heat entered with the NBA’s top defensive rating, and played like an elite defense against what’s expected to be one of the league’s top offenses.
Miami challenged Brooklyn’s high-powered offense with its plethora of tough and physical defenders and came out on top.
The Nets finished with a season-low offensive rating of 90.3 points scored per 100 possessions. Brooklyn finished with a worse single-game offensive rating only once last regular season, and the trio of Durant, Harden and Kyrie Irving did not play in that game.
P.J. Tucker spent most of the night defending Durant and Butler accepted the Harden assignment..
Durant finished with 25 points on 18 shots and committed five turnovers.
Harden ended the night with 14 points on 12 shots and committed four turnovers.
The Heat’s defense was also opportunistic, scoring 25 points off 16 turnovers from the Nets.
One of the amazing stats from the Heat’s defensive dominance to begin the season: Miami has posted a defensive rating of 91 points allowed per 100 possessions or better in three of the first four games. The Heat pulled that off just once in 72 games last regular season.
So it’s no surprise that the Heat owns the NBA’s top defensive rating this season, allowing only 92 points per 100 possessions.
It’s worth noting that the Nets are playing without Irving because he’s unvaccinated and ineligible to play in home games by New York City mandate.
The Heat’s early-season three-point shooting struggles continued. But its early-season rebounding dominance helped negate some of its shooting issues.
Miami entered shooting just 31.6 percent from three-point range in the first three games, which ranked seventh-worst in the NBA.
That number didn’t improve Wednesday, as the Heat made just eight of its 29 three-point attempts (27.6 percent) against the Nets. Brooklyn outscored Miami 42-24 from deep.
Duncan Robinson finished 2 of 7 on threes in Brooklyn. He’s shooting 31.3 percent from deep for the season.
Lowry shot 1 of 5 on threes against the Nets. He’s shooting 17.6 percent from three-point range for the season.
Max Strus also shot 1 of 5 on threes on Wednesday. He’s shooting 26.7 percent from beyond the arc for the season.
But Tucker hit three of his five three-point attempts against the Nets to raise his three-point percentage to 38.5 percent for the season.
Does coach Erik Spoelstra like the three-point looks the Heat is generating?
“Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. Yeah. Those guys will get it going,” Spoelstra said.
The Heat’s early-season success on the boards has helped to negate some of those shooting struggles, as it entered with the NBA’s third-best rebounding percentage (the percentage of available rebounds a team grabs) at 53.7 percent to start the season. This comes after the Heat finished last regular season with the NBA’s ninth-worst rebounding percentage at 49.1 percent
On Wednesday, Miami finished with a sizable edge on the glass. The Heat outrebounded the Nets 62-42, including 17 offensive rebounds that resulted in 31 second-chance points.
This rebounding advantage helped the Heat finish with 11 more shot attempts than the Nets. The 62 rebounds is the most that Miami has grabbed in a game since recording 64 rebounds in a win over the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 9, 2018.
“We hoped that this would be a good rebounding team,” Spoelstra said. “It’s something that we really focused on as an organization in the offseason and as a coaching staff and as a team to commit to that, and that’s on both sides of the glass. Defensive rebounding, but also offensive rebounding.”
The Heat’s rotation has remained consistent through the first four games of the season.
The starting lineup of Lowry, Robinson, Butler, Tucker and Adebayo is a constant when those five are healthy.
And the bench rotation looks just as set, with Tyler Herro, Dewayne Dedmon, Strus and Markieff Morris consistently completing the nine-man rotation.
Having a definitive rotation this early in the season provides clarity for the Heat.
Herro finished Wednesday’s win with 14 points on 5-of-17 shooting, eight rebounds and two assists.
Dedmon’s minutes as the Heat’s backup center continue to be a positive.
Dedmon entered Wednesday’s game midway through the first quarter and made an immediate impact. He recorded six points and five rebounds in his initial seven-minute stint off the bench, with the Heat outscoring the Nets 18-9 during that stretch.
Dedmon finished with 14 points and nine rebounds in 17 minutes while posting a plus-minus of plus-12.
“Dewayne was just outstanding with those extra efforts, giving us those needed possessions and buckets and rebounding and just size in the paint,” Spoelstra said.
The Heat has now outscored its opponent by 31 points in Dedmon’s minutes.
Dedmon took over as the Heat’s backup center shortly after he signed last season and provided much-needed quality minutes when Adebeyo went to the bench then, too. Those minutes had been a negative before the addition of Dedmon, but the Heat outscored opponents by 17.1 points with Dedmon on the court as the backup center last regular season.
That trend has continued this season, and that’s encouraging for the Heat.
After sending undrafted rookie Marcus Garrett to the G League for further development, it looks like the Heat’s plan is very different for its other two-way contract player.
While Garrett was sent to the Sioux Falls Skyforce on Tuesday, two-way contract wing Caleb Martin remains with the Heat.
That’s not surprising, considering Martin brings real NBA experience even as a two-way contract player. He spent the past two seasons on a standard contract with the Hornets, when he played in 72 games.
It doesn’t sound like Martin is going to the G League anytime soon.
“He’s always on our mind,” Spoelstra said of Martin ahead of Wednesday’s game. “So he has experience. I feel right now he’s a plug-and-play guy. We all feel very comfortable with that. ... I think he’s a great three-and-D guy that can just fit right in.”
Players on two-way contracts like Garrett and Martin can be on their NBA team’s active list for as many as 50 regular-season games this season. Martin was active against the Nets and has been active in three of the Heat’s first four games.
This story was originally published October 27, 2021 at 10:00 PM.
