Reaction to Kyle Lowry’s ejection in Portland and how Heat responded in the second half
In the minutes following the Miami Heat’s 115-109 road win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday, coach Erik Spoelstra was still waiting for an explanation.
Heat point guard Kyle Lowry was ejected with 1:14 left in the second quarter of the game after picking up two technical fouls in the span of two minutes.
(The Heat’s Tyler Herro and Trail Blazers’ Jusuf Nurkic were also ejected with about a minute left to play after receiving technical fouls for fighting).
The explanations are now here, as relayed by crew chief Derek Richardson to a pool reporter after the game at Moda Center.
Lowry’s first technical foul, which came with 3:13 left in the first half after he was called for a personal foul on Portland’s Nassir Little, was for “directing profanity towards a game official.”
Two minutes later, during a stoppage in play following a Duncan Robinson foul, Lowry tossed the ball toward referee Matt Kallio.
Kallio called Lowry for the technical, which resulted in the ejection.
The reasoning for the technical, as given by Richardson in the pool report: “Continuous complaining and throwing the ball at a game official in an unsportsmanlike manner. As per rule, a player receiving a second unsportsmanlike technical foul is automatically ejected.”
Lowry then left the court shouting expletives. Spoelstra received a technical of his own for complaining to veteran official Bennie Adams (Spoelstra was “repeatedly addressing a game official in a disrespectful manner,” according to Richardson).
It ended Lowry’s night early, a night in which he had already scored 7 points, dished out nine assists and grabbed two rebounds.
“Look, Kyle is extremely passionate,” Spoelstra said, with the Heat in the middle of a two-day break before continuing its road trip on Saturday against the Phoenix Suns. “I don’t know exactly what he said. You just hope you can manage the game, keep the talent out. Fans are paying money to see everybody play. Everybody’s a little bit stressed out right now. And it just takes great emotional management.”
And it took a lot of game management on Spoelstra’s end to keep the Heat in the game in the second half and snap their two-game losing streak.
The Heat was already missing Jimmy Butler, who suffered a right ankle sprain on Monday against the Golden State Warriors in addition to the slew of other key players who are out due to injury (Bam Adebayo, Dewayne Dedmon and Markieff Morris).
Just like so many other times already this season, the Heat was going to need different players to step up in big moments.
“We didn’t manage our emotions the best that we could in the first half,” Spoelstra said, “but we settled in in the second half. Once Kyle got tossed and I got my T, we just committed at halftime that we were just going to focus on the game, do whatever was necessary to come out of here with a win.”
And that they did.
Herro, who started on the bench, primarily handled point guard duties in the second half until his ejection in the final minute and scored 16 points despite shooting 5 for 23 from the field.
Max Strus scored 25 points in his return from health and safety protocols, including three three-pointers in a span of 1:39 in the fourth quarter to push the Heat’s lead to 105-92 with 3:59 left to play.
Omer Yurtseven, who picked up three personal fouls in the first half, settled in over the second half and finished with 14 points and 16 rebounds for his fifth double-double in the last six games.
And P.J. Tucker served as the veteran presence down the stretch. Tucker was on the floor for the final 9:41 and 21:35 total in the second half. He finished with his third double-double of the season — 14 points, 10 rebounds — and led a young Heat roster in the closing minutes.
“I knew how much harder the game was going to be,” Tucker said. “I was going to have to trigger a lot more plays and do a lot more, lead a little bit more. I told the guys after the last game in the locker room at Golden State, ‘I don’t care who it is. ... We’ve got to win games. No matter who’s playing, who’s not playing, guys have to step up every single night and win games.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 10:03 AM.
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