Heat falls to Kings despite career night from Yurtseven. Takeaways from the two-point loss
The past month for the Miami Heat has been all about overcoming injury and COVID-19 issues.
The Heat has been successful in doing so often.
But the depleted Heat (23-14) couldn’t do it on Sunday, falling to the Sacramento Kings 115-113 at Golden 1 Center. The loss snapped Miami’s five-game winning streak.
With the game tied at 113, Kings guard De’Aaron Fox was fouled on a drive to the basket by Tyler Herro with 6.2 seconds to play. Fox made both free throws, which proved to be the difference in the game.
The Heat had one final opportunity to send the game to overtime or escape with the win, but Jimmy Butler missed a one-handed floater from eight feet away as the final buzzer sounded.
“I think from our vantage point, everybody thought that his floater had a real chance to go,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s a good clean look.”
Butler agreed, saying: “I just smoked a layup. I’m supposed to make it, didn’t. Oh well.”
When it was done, the Heat felt like it wasted an opportunity to win another game. Miami led by seven with 9:52 left in the fourth quarter.
But the teams then traded punches until Fox’s game-winning free throws for the Kings (16-22).
“We had a big lead. We got up like seven to start the fourth quarter,” Heat guard Kyle Lowry said. “It was a good lead. But we didn’t keep it and I think it was just a back and forth game at the end. ... It was just a game we lost. They found a way to win the game at the end.”
Each of the Heat’s five available roster regulars finished with double-digit points. Herro and Omer Yurtseven each scored a team-high 22.
Butler finished with 21 points on 9-of-22 shooting, six rebounds and five assists. He tied a season-low with just two free-throw attempts.
Lowry ended the night with 14 points and 12 assists.
The Kings were led by Buddy Hield, who finished with a game-high 26 points on 7-of-14 shooting on threes. Fox scored 24 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter.
The Heat continues its six-game trip on Monday against the Golden State Warriors (10 p.m., Bally Sports Sun and NBA TV) to complete the road back-to-back set. Miami is 1-1 on the trip.
Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Kings:
After setting a new franchise record for threes made in a single month in December, the Heat’s three-point shooting went cold to start January.
Miami shot just 9 of 33 (27.3 percent) from three-point range on Sunday. The Kings outscored the Heat 39-27 from beyond the arc.
The Heat is just 4-7 this season and 9-20 since the start of last season when shooting worse than 30 percent from three-point range in a game.
Herro shot 4 of 11 from deep, but the rest of the team combined to shoot just 5 of 22 (22.7 percent) on threes.
Butler took a season-high six threes on Sunday and made just one. It marked the first time this season that Butler has attempted more threes (6) than free throws (2) in a game.
“I shot a lot of jump shots tonight,” Butler said. “Whenever you shoot a lot of jump shots, you don’t get to the free-throw line very often. That’s on me. Easily correctable. If I want to go in there and draw the foul, I think I can do that. But I’m going to continue to take what the game gives me.”
In the fourth quarter, the Heat missed each of its eight shots from three-point range.
This performance comes after the Heat set a new franchise record with 229 made threes while shooting 40.2 percent from deep in December. Miami’s previous record for a single month was 199 made threes, according to Heat.com’s Couper Moorhead.
Yurtseven is making history with his elite rebounding.
The Heat’s rookie center grabbed double-digit rebounds for the eighth straight game, finishing with career-highs in points (22) and rebounds (16) on Sunday.
It’s the longest such rebounding streak for a Heat rookie in franchise history, surpassing the previous record of three consecutive games by both Michael Beasley and Rony Seikaly.
Yurtseven, 23, has also grabbed at least 12 rebounds in eight straight games. The last rookie to do that was Blake Griffin.
“He’s big, so as long as he’s in the right position, he’s got a pretty good chance to rebound because he’s got a knack for the ball,” Spoelstra said of Yurtseven.
With centers Bam Adebayo and Dewayne Dedmon both injured, Yurtseven has started four consecutive games. Yurtseven has recorded a double-double in each of those starts, averaging 14.5 points and 14.5 rebounds in the last four games.
Over the last 10 games, Yurtseven has posted the NBA’s top rebounding percentage (the percentage of available rebounds a player grabs while on the court) among those who have appeared in at least five games during that stretch at 22.9 percent. Atlanta’s Clint Capela is tied with Yurtseven at 22.9 percent and Denver’s Nikola Jokic is just below them at 22.2 percent.
Yurtseven, who was signed by the Heat to a guaranteed contract for this season after impressing as a member of its summer league team, has appeared in 17 straight games because of the team’s injury issues after spending the first month of the season out of the rotation.
Mario Chalmers is still waiting to play in his first NBA game since 2018.
Chalmers, 35, has been in uniform for the last two games after signing a 10-day contract on Friday to return to the Heat as a COVID-19 replacement. But he has not played in either game.
Chalmers, who spent the first seven-plus seasons of his NBA career with the Heat, last played in an NBA game on April 11, 2018 as a member of the Memphis Grizzlies. He tore his right Achilles tendon in March 2016 and it derailed his NBA career, as he needed four additional surgeries because of issues stemming from the injury.
Instead, the Heat’s bench rotation included the same four COVID-19 replacement players who were used in Friday’s win over the Rockets.
With a bench made up entirely of COVID-19 replacements, Miami played Kyle Guy, Haywood Highsmith, Chris Silva and Nik Stauskas as its reserves on Sunday. Those four combined to contribute 19 bench points for the Heat, with Guy and Silva each scoring seven.
The positive news for the Heat is there have been no additional positive COVID-19 tests for the rest of its roster in recent days.
Following a wave of positive tests for the team last week, the Heat has six players currently in the NBA’s health and safety protocols: Marcus Garrett, Udonis Haslem, Duncan Robinson, Max Strus, P.J. Tucker and Gabe Vincent.
But after Robinson and Garrett entered protocols on Thursday, there have been no other Heat players who have needed to.
“I commend everybody involved,” Spoelstra said of getting through the latest COVID-19 crush. “That’s the league, the players and their association, staff members and everybody just trying to figure this out and continue to move the business forward. The priority is everybody’s health and safety, and our family and friends. And then we’re adapting.”
With the NBA allowing players to return after five-day quarantines if they meet certain testing requirements, the Heat could get each of its six players sidelined by protocols back by the end of the week.
Haslem and Strus’ five-day quarantine ran through Sunday; Tucker and Vincent’s five-day quarantine runs through Monday; and Garrett and Robinson’s five-day quarantine runs through Tuesday.
“Now we have a league that is mostly vaccinated, double vaccinated with a booster,” Spoelstra said. “The ones that are testing positive, the overwhelming majority of them are asymptomatic or very minor symptoms. So I think the return-to-play protocol now, which could be quicker, I think was the appropriate step.”
Adebayo’s expected return is a few weeks away, but he’s still traveling with the Heat.
Adebayo (thumb surgery), Dedmon (knee sprain), Markieff Morris (whiplash), KZ Okpala (wrist sprain) and Victor Oladipo (knee injury recovery) were the five Heat players unavailable Sunday because of injuries. Morris and Oladipo remain in Miami, but the rest of the Heat’s injured players are on the trip.
Dedmon and Okpala are close to returning, so it’s not a surprise that they’re traveling. Dedmon is expected to miss one to two weeks and he has already been out for a little more than a week, and Okpala is considered day-to-day.
But Adebayo, the Heat’s starting center, is not expected back before the team returns to Miami following its Jan. 8 game against the Phoenix Suns. Adebayo’s recovery timeline has him returning in mid-January after undergoing successful surgery on Dec. 6 for a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb.
So, why is Adebayo traveling?
“Bam is the heart and soul of our group,” Spoelstra said Sunday. “So I think just from a spirit standpoint, and an emotional-boost standpoint, it’s great having him here with the team, with the guys. He’s able to work out every single day. But he likes being around the team, likes being around the games. You see how engaged he is in every huddle, and on the sidelines. I believe in that. There’s no way to really know for sure. But I think it speeds up recovery to be around the guys, and having that human interaction is helping his hand heal a little quicker.”
This story was originally published January 2, 2022 at 8:28 PM.
