Takeaways from Heat loss to Mavericks, as offense goes cold and Oladipo heads to Sioux Falls
The Miami Heat was presented with another opportunity to overcome adversity, but it couldn’t come through this time.
With just 10 available players because of injury issues, the Heat (37-21) wilted in the second half in a 107-99 loss to the Dallas Mavericks (34-24) on Tuesday night at FTX Arena. The result snapped the Heat’s five-game winning streak.
While missing six players, including Tyler Herro, Caleb Martin and Dewayne Dedmon, the Heat led by as many as 13 points late in the first half. But Dallas dominated the third quarter to outscore Miami 30-19 in the period to rally and take a three-point lead into the fourth.
The Heat never truly recovered, as the Mavericks extended their lead to 11 with 6:56 to play.
“We just weren’t aggressive enough and didn’t get enough stops on the other end,” Heat guard Kyle Lowry said. “We didn’t get out in transition. They had a great second half. They made shots. We kind of played to their pace.”
Miami attempted to put together a comeback of its own led by Jimmy Butler, scoring eight answered points to cut the deficit to only three a few minutes later.
But with the Heat trailing by five, the Mavericks sealed the win when Maxi Kleber hit a three to extend their lead to eight with 38.3 seconds remaining.
Dallas outscored Miami 56-40 in the second half.
After shooting 52.3 percent from the field in the first half, the Heat shot just 12 of 40 (30 percent) from the field and 1 of 14 (7.1 percent) from three-point range in the final two quarters.
Butler scored 21 of his game-high 29 points in the second half, but the rest of the Heat’s roster combined to total just 19 points on 7-of-31 (22.6 percent) shooting in the final two quarters.
The Heat’s other two leading men, Bam Adebayo and Lowry, combined for 34 points on 14-of-27 (51.9 percent) shooting from the field in the loss. Adebayo finished with 21 points, 12 rebounds and three assists and Lowry finished with 13 points, four rebounds and four assists.
For the Mavericks, superstar Luka Doncic scored a team-high 21 points on 5-of-19 shooting from the field and 9-of-12 shooting from the foul line to go with 10 rebounds and six assists. Kleber contributed 19 points off the bench.
The Mavericks shot 18 of 41 (43.9 percent) on threes to negate a 52-24 deficit to the Heat in the paint.
“I feel that was a tad bit of a playoff style basketball game,” Butler said. “It’s fun. Those are always the games that you want to play in. We know what we’re capable of. We know what we have to do. We know what we did not do tonight. We just can’t make that a constant thing night in and night out. We need to go out there and play better on the defensive end.”
Despite owning the same record as the Chicago Bulls, the Heat remains in first place in the Eastern Conference because it holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Bulls.
Next up for the Heat is a road matchup against the Charlotte Hornets on Thursday before entering the All-Star break.
Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Mavericks:
The Heat’s string of third-quarter dominance came to an end.
The Heat had outscored teams by a combined margin of 71 points in the third quarter during its five-game winning streak that was snapped on Tuesday. Miami shot 51.4 percent from the field and 14 of 34 (41.2 percent) from three-point range in the third quarter during that stretch.
But that trend came to an abrupt and painful end on Tuesday, when the Mavericks rallied from an eight-point halftime deficit by outscoring the Heat 30-19 in the third quarter.
The Heat shot just 6 of 24 (25 percent) from the field and 1 of 11 (9.1 percent) from three-point range in the period. Meanwhile, the Mavericks shot 10 of 20 (50 percent) from the field and 5 of 10 (50 percent) on threes in the quarter.
The Heat’s inefficient offense spilled into the fourth quarter, as it totaled just 21 points on 6-of-16 (37.5 percent) shooting from the field and 0-of-3 shooting on threes in the final period.
“They stayed with our shooters,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They did a good job of bullying through stuff. I just want to get to the film.”
The Mavericks feature one of the NBA’s top defenses and it showed. Dallas owns the league’s fifth-best defensive rating this season.
The Heat posted an offensive rating of 88.9 points scored per 100 possessions in Tuesday’s second half, which is its fourth-worst second-half offensive rating of the season.
Miami also fell to 4-10 this season when shooting worse than 30 percent from three-point range.
“This is probably one of the most underrated defensive teams in the league,” Spoelstra said of the Mavericks. “They’re far different than they were last year. They can do this to you, get you in the mud and make it tough.”
The Mavericks turned to its size to slow the Heat’s offense, as it played 6-7 Dorian Finney-Smith, 6-10 Dwight Powell, the 6-10 Kleber and the 6-7 Doncic together down the stretch.
The Heat was without three rotation players on Tuesday.
Three important members of the Heat’s bench rotation were out against the Mavericks because of injuries: Dedmon (lower back tightness), Herro (right knee contusion) and Martin (left Achilles soreness).
Dedmon was a new addition to the injury report on Tuesday, as Spoelstra said the hope is his back injury is a “short-term” issue.
After returning from a two-game absence to play in Saturday’s win over the Brooklyn Nets, Herro again was unavailable on Tuesday because of a right knee contusion. Before playing Saturday, he missed the previous two games because of right knee soreness.
“He’s making progress with it,” Spoelstra said of Herro’s knee. “But if you’re playing every other night, it’s not going to totally resolve itself. So we think this is the best course of action right now.”
An MRI on Herro’s injured knee revealed only a contusion and no structural damage.
When asked if the Heat could keep Herro out through the All-Star break as a precaution, Spoelstra said: “Possibly. That’s something that we’re discussing with the training staff.”
Martin, who had his two-way contract converted into a standard contract by the Heat on Tuesday, was ruled out for a third straight game just minutes before tipoff because of Achilles soreness. He has missed four of the last six games with the Achilles issue.
“I’ll just say that everything we’re managing right now is manageable,” Spoelstra said. “A lot of the guys have the same response to me. They say, ‘If this is the playoffs, I’m playing tonight.’ Well, it’s not the playoffs and we want to make sure that we’re handling things so they’re manageable right now and not leading to something else.”
The Heat was also without Udonis Haslem (right eye abrasion), Markieff Morris (return to competition reconditioning) and Victor Oladipo (right knee injury recovery) on Tuesday.
With injuries limiting the Heat to just 10 available players, the bench rotation looked different against the Mavericks.
The only reserves available for the Heat on Tuesday were Kyle Guy, Haywood Highsmith, Max Strus, Gabe Vincent and Omer Yurtseven.
The Heat played Highsmith, Strus, Vincent and Yurtseven off the bench against the Mavericks.
Yurtseven finished with 11 points and eight rebounds in 15 minutes as the Heat’s backup center in place of Dedmon. It marked the most minutes that the rookie has played since Adebayo returned from injury on Jan. 17.
Yurtseven had totaled just 26 minutes in the previous 14 games since Adebayo returned. Adebayo, as a starter, and Dedmon, as the backup, have played ahead of Yurtseven during this stretch.
Highsmith, who signed a 10-day contract with the Heat just hours before Tuesday’s game, finished with six points on 2-of-5 shooting on threes in 16 minutes.
Guy was the only available Heat player who did not get into the contest.
The Heat again made life tough for Doncic, but others around him came through.
Despite scoring an inefficient 21 points on 19 shots, Doncic was able to lead the Mavericks to the win with the help of his teammates, who combined to score 86 points on 50.9 percent shooting.
“He manipulates the defense and gets into these gaps that usually require a second, if not, third defender,” Spoelstra said of Doncic. “He’s got great size and vision. He’s able to deliver the ball in a variety of different ways. Their shooters knocked down some big ones.”
Doncic entered averaging 20.7 points on 39.5 percent shooting from the field and 31.5 percent shooting from three-point range in his first seven games against the Heat. That’s the fewest points that Doncic has averaged against any team during his young NBA career.
Doncic now holds a 3-5 record in games he has played against the Heat.
“He’s constantly making you guard him with two, three bodies at all times everywhere on the floor,” Butler said. “He was looking to make the right play or pass every time. We didn’t turn him over nearly enough.”
Oladipo is taking another step toward a return.
Oladipo joined the Heat’s G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, on Tuesday to get 5-of-5 practice work in over the next few days. He has yet to play this season after undergoing surgery to repair the quadriceps tendon in his right knee last May.
Oladipo is not expected to play in any games with the Skyforce. But joining Sioux Falls gives Oladipo an opportunity to go through a few practices, as Miami prepares to take time off during the upcoming All-Star break.
The Heat’s next practice will come next week following the break.
The Heat stressed not to make too much of the news, noting that it’s just a part of Oladipo’s recovery process.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 10:13 PM.
