Heat continues to search for late-game answers as playoffs near: ‘We’re still not there’
With 10 regular-season games left to play, the Eastern Conference-leading Miami Heat is still working through late-game issues.
Not only because the Heat’s leading quartet of Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro and Kyle Lowry have logged just 51 fourth-quarter minutes together this season due to injuries and other issues. But also because the Heat has been a below average team late in close games this season with the NBA’s 19th-best net rating in clutch situations (defined as a game that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter).
Those issues popped up again in Monday night’s 113-106 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center. Despite missing their All-Star duo of Joel Embiid and James Harden, the 76ers used a late 16-2 run to go from trailing by three points with 5:10 to play to pulling ahead by 11 points with 1:03 left to take control.
“We haven’t had an opportunity to have our finishing lineup as much as we would like and we don’t even know what our finishing lineups will be,” Lowry said, with the Heat now returning to Miami to open a four-game homestand on Wednesday against the Golden State Warriors (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun). “So, we still have time and we still have situations where we’ll adjust and adapt and get better.”
Monday’s loss dropped the Heat’s clutch record to 20-14 this season. That winning record is surprising, considering the process hasn’t matched those results with Miami outscored by 5.3 points per 100 possessions in those situations behind a poor clutch offense ranked fifth-worst in the NBA and what’s now a relatively average clutch defense ranked 12th-best in the NBA.
The Heat’s clutch defense was ranked fifth-best in the NBA before Monday’s performance pushed it down to 12th.
The only teams ranked in the top six in either conference that are being outscored per 100 possessions in the clutch are the Heat, Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks.
“We’re still not there,” Lowry said when asked if the Heat is where it wants to be with less than three weeks left in the regular season. “We’re closer and we should be one more step there, but it’s just about communication and understanding what’s going on and the coverages and situations that we’re going to be in and we’re all on the same page.”
The Heat closed Monday’s game with a lineup of Lowry, Herro, Butler, Adebayo and Caleb Martin. That five-man combination played the final 4:47, as Miami was outscored 15-7 during that stretch.
The Heat shot 3 of 10 from the field and 1 of 5 on threes in that crucial span. Herro shot 0 of 3 from the field, Lowry shot 1 of 3, Butler shot 1 of 2, Martin shot 1 of 2 and Adebayo did not take a shot.
Late-game offense has been an issue for the Heat throughout the season, as it has scored just 100 points per 100 possessions in clutch situations. The only four teams with a worse clutch offense than Miami (Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks) all have losing records.
“I’m going to have to get to the film because I think it was a mixed bag,” coach Erik Spoelstra said when asked about the Heat’s offense in the final minutes of Monday’s loss. “I think there was some of it that was good. We got the ball where we wanted it to go and we executed coherently. Then we had some rough possessions.
“You’re not always going to make every shot, but you want to make sure that you get shots in your wheelhouse and that the ball is going where you need it to go. We’ll continue to get better in that area.”
The Heat’s late-game defense has been better than its late-game offense this season, but even its clutch defense let it down in Philadelphia.
The 76ers’ offense kept it simple and repeatedly ran handoffs and passes around the three-point line to get the switch and matchup it wanted. That matchup usually included Herro as the defender, as Tyrese Maxey, Shake Milton and Tobias Harris each took turns driving at Herro.
“They ran the same play for the last four minutes,” Adebayo said. “That’s on us as players to make an adjustment. During the timeout, I feel like we were just so locked in on our offense that we weren’t really trying to fix our defense at the time.”
The Heat was often late to send help to wall off the paint and Maxey scored 13 points in the fourth quarter. It’s part of the reason why the Heat allowed 54 drives on Monday, which is a high number considering it has defended the second-fewest drives at 41.5 per game this season.
“Just help. Be there,” Lowry said when asked what the other Heat defenders on the court can do when teams try to isolate against Herro. “I think some of the shots they made over him were tough. I think he played his butt off on the defensive end, he tried, and they made some shots. ... We know what the situation is gonna be, who teams are gonna go at, and Tyler is gonna take the challenge. At the end of the day, he’s going take that challenge as a man to try to man up and we’ll help him as best we can.”
Herro has allowed players he has defended to score 1.12 points per possession in isolation situations this season, which only puts him in the 18th percentile in the NBA. But Spoelstra referred to him as “one of our better individual defenders during the course of the year” and Herro has shown improvement on that end of the court.
“I’m going to chalk this up, hopefully, as an anomaly,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s defensive performance against the 76ers. “But hopefully it catches our attention, as well.”
Monday was an outlier when it comes to the defense, as the Heat owns the NBA’s fourth-best defensive rating this season. The more concerning trend has to do with Miami’s late-game offense, which has ranked near the bottom of the league in clutch moments for months and is the 12th-best unit in all situations.
What will the Heat’s closing lineup be? What will be the go-to offensive action late in close games? What will the Heat do when an opponent hunts Herro on the defensive end?
The Heat is still searching for answers to a few of those questions, as it works to fix some of its late-game problems with the start of the playoffs approaching.
“We’re alright,” Butler said. “I feel as though we are at the top of the East for a reason. It’s all about being healthy at the end of this thing and playing our best basketball at the right time and figuring out the little bit of kinks that we do have.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 12:37 PM.
