Takeaways: Injury-depleted Heat seven-man roster comes up short in overtime loss to Wizards
.JPG "Washington Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma (33) goes to the basket against Miami Heat guard Kyle Lowry (7) and forward Caleb Martin (16) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, in Washington.")
The Miami Heat did not have Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler or Tyler Herro for Friday’s game against the Washington Wizards. But the Heat still had enough to force overtime.
Miami just didn’t have enough to escape with the win, as the Wizards (9-7) won the extra period 3-2 to earn a 107-106 victory over the injury-depleted Heat on Friday night at Capital One Arena. The Heat (7-9) fell to 0-2 on its four-game trip.
“The guys played outstanding and really competed,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s a shame. I really wish I could have told something better to my locker room because I’m really proud of that effort tonight. We just had a couple miscues.”
Miami played with just seven available players: Kyle Lowry, Caleb Martin, Haywood Highsmith, Nikola Jovic, Max Strus, Jamal Cain and Orlando Robinson.
Despite its long injury list that included nine players, the Heat led for nearly the entire game but the Wizards rallied from a double-digit third-quarter deficit to force overtime.
The Heat, which used its 2-3 zone defense for most of the night, led by as many as 15 points in the first half and entered halftime ahead by 12 points. That’s when fatigue seemed to set in for Miami’s undermanned roster.
The Wizards used an 18-3 run to turn a 13-point deficit into a two-point lead over the Heat with 10:31 left in the fourth quarter.
The Heat and Wizards then traded punches for most of the final period, with the two teams tied at 99 with 1:49 remaining in the period.
The Heat scored the next five points to pull ahead by five with 1:01 left.
The Wizards answered with a quick Bradley Beal layup to cut the deficit to three with 54.8 seconds left. Then Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma hit a corner three-pointer in front of the Heat’s bench to tie the game with 15.3 seconds remaining in regulation and force overtime.
Despite missing its first seven shots of overtime, the Heat still had an opportunity to escape with the win with possession of the ball and trailing by one point with 2.8 seconds left in the extra period.
But on the final possession following a timeout, Strus’ three-point look bounced off the front rim as the final buzzer sounded to end the Heat’s run at the improbable victory.
“If you can get that kind of look, I thought it was going on,” Spoelstra said of the final shot. “It was dead on, just a little bit short. But it just had the feeling that that was a shot that was going to go.”
With so many players out, most of the Heat’s available players had to log big minutes. Cain (18 minutes), Highsmith (42 minutes), Jovic (30 minutes), Martin (47 minutes), Orlando Robinson (32 minutes) and Strus (45 minutes) all set new career-highs in minutes on Friday.
The only available Heat player who didn’t set a new career-high in minutes was Lowry, who played a team-high 51 minutes against the Wizards.
“Honestly, I’m just proud of the effort that we went out there and gave,” Lowry said. “All of us that played and even the guys that didn’t play and our coaches, we just went out there and fought. It’s really one of those games where you’re just upset that you just didn’t win that game. But you go on and you move on.”
The Heat continues its four-game trip on Sunday against the Cleveland Cavaliers before wrapping up the trip on Monday against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Wizards on Friday:
The Heat actually had just seven available players for Friday’s game, one below the NBA-required minimum of eight active needed to play a game.
But the Heat made injured guard Gabe Vincent active to meet the league’s requirement to get the game in. Vincent was in uniform but was not able to play because of left knee effusion.
The Heat was also without Adebayo (left knee contusion), Butler (right knee soreness), Dewayne Dedmon (non-COVID illness), Udonis Haslem (personal reasons), Herro (left ankle sprain), Victor Oladipo (left knee tendinosis), Duncan Robinson (right hand sprain), Gabe Vincent (left knee effusion) and Omer Yurtseven (left ankle surgery).
Adebayo, Haslem, Herro, Oladipo and Yurtseven also missed Wednesday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors. In fact, Herro has missed six straight games and Oladipo and Yurtseven have yet to play this season.
But Butler, Dedmon, Duncan Robinson and Vincent were new Heat absences.
Butler is expected to return to Miami on Saturday to have his knee further evaluated, according to a league source, which means he’ll miss the rest of the trip and the soonest he can return is when the Heat returns home to host the Wizards on Wednesday. The hope remains that Butler’s knee issue is minor.
Dedmon has been playing through a case of plantar fasciitis, but the ailment keeping out of Friday’s game was listed as a non-COVID stomach illness.
Duncan Robinson got one of his fingers caught in another player’s jersey during the team’s morning shootaround Friday and hurt his hand.
“He would really like to be out there tonight,” Spoelstra said of Duncan Robinson. “It’s just one of those freakish things. He got his finger caught in a jersey and we’ll just continue to treat him and see how he feels.”
Vincent also took part in the team’s morning shootaround on Friday, but his knee swelled up in the hours before the game.
“After last game his knee was a little bit sore,” Spoelstra said of Vincent. “I’m sure it’s just the uptick in minutes and mode and everything. And that’s where you have to treat each player’s circumstance separately. Because he’s got that kind of feeling, he’s seeing other guys out, ‘Hey, I have to go play.’ But we want to be responsible to each player.”
Fatigue seemed to set in for the short-handed Heat during the second half and Strus took the loss hard.
After shooting 9 of 20 (45 percent) from three-point range in the first two quarters to enter halftime with a 12-point lead, the Heat struggled to make threes the rest of the way. Miami shot just 2 of 23 (8.7 percent) from beyond the arc after halftime.
Miami totaled only 37 points while shooting an inefficient 13 of 51 (25.5 percent) from the field in the final two quarters and overtime.
In fact, the Heat’s final made field goal of the game came on a Lowry jumper with 1:01 left in the fourth quarter. Miami went the final 6:01 of the game without making a field goal, as its only two points in overtime came on two free throws from Lowry.
Strus was especially hard on himself after the loss for his own shooting struggles.
After scoring 16 points on 5-of-9 (55.6 percent) shooting from the field and 3-of-4 (75 percent) shooting on threes in the first two quarters, Strus totaled just six points on 3-of-15 (20 percent) shooting from the field and 0-of-10 shooting from three-point range after halftime.
Strus ended the night with 22 points on 8-of-24 (33.3 percent) shooting from the field and 3-of-14 (21.4 percent) shooting from beyond the arc.
“I let the guys down tonight,” Strus said. “I disappeared in the second half and we had a lot of guys step up and play hard, give us great minutes. We should have won the game. I’ll take that one and move on from it.”
Martin and Highsmith also had rough shooting performances, but made an impact in other areas.
Martin contributed 12 points while shooting 3 of 12 (25 percent) from the field and 2 of 5 (40 percent) on threes, five rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block in 47 minutes.
Highsmith recorded 12 points on 5-of-17 (29.4 percent) shooting from the field and 1-of-7 (14.3 percent) shooting on threes, 13 rebounds, two assists and two steals in 42 minutes.
With Adebayo, Butler and Herro out and no backup point guard available, Lowry did everything he could to try to lead the Heat to the win.
Lowry, 36, finished with 24 points, 10 rebounds and 15 assists to earn the 21st triple-double of his NBA career.
The performance represented Lowry’s third triple-double as a member of the Heat. He picked up two triple-doubles in his first season with Miami last season.
Lowry didn’t get the chance to rest much, as he exited the game for the first time with 1:10 left in the third quarter. He returned with 11:04 remaining in the fourth quarter.
That was the only time Lowry spent on the bench.
Lowry played 50:54 of the 53 minutes on Friday. It’s the fifth time he has hit the 50-minute mark in a game during his 17-year NBA career and the first time he has done it since the 2019-20 season.
“I felt like I accomplished something by getting him a minute rest in that second half,” Spoelstra said. “But he knows how to pace himself. He really competed. He almost had a triple-double at halftime, it was amazing, and just settled everybody.”
Lowry recorded 14 points, seven rebounds and nine assists in the first two quarters. He played every second of the first half.
The last time a Heat player played all 24 minutes of the first half was the final game of the 2014-15 season against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 15, 2015, when four players did it: Michael Beasley, James Ennis, Tyler Johnson, and Henry Walker.
With so many players out, the Heat played three rookies. Two of them were undrafted and one of them made his NBA debut.
Jovic, who was selected with the 27th pick in this past summer’s draft, started at center in place of Adebayo for the second straight game. Jovic finished Friday’s loss with 18 points and six rebounds in 30 minutes.
The Heat’s two two-way contract players, Cain and Orlando Robinson, both went undrafted this year. Both had encouraging moments.
Cain finished with four points and six rebounds in 18 minutes in his third game of the season with the Heat.
Orlando Robinson made his NBA debut against the Wizards and was impressive, finishing with 14 points and seven rebounds in 32 minutes.
Friday marked the first game in Duncan Robinson’s NBA career that he missed because of an injury.
In Duncan Robinson’s first NBA season in 2018-19, he spent most of it with the Heat’s G League affiliate. The 29 games he did not appear in while with the Heat were all listed as did not play-coach’s decision.
In Duncan Robinson’s second NBA season in 2019-20, he did not miss a game.
In Duncan Robinson’s third NBA season in 2020-21, he also did not miss a game.
Last season, Duncan Robinson missed three games in the regular season because of the NBA’s health and safety protocols and received five DNP-CDs in the playoffs.
And Friday was the first game Duncan Robinson missed this season and the first game he has missed in his NBA career because of an injury. It came because of a “freakish” incident during Friday’s morning shootaround.
This story was originally published November 18, 2022 at 9:53 PM.
