Heat back below .500. Takeaways from painful loss to Pacers as Jimmy Butler sprains ankle
Less than two weeks ago, the Miami Heat defeated the Indiana Pacers behind its defense in the NBA’s lowest-scoring game yet this season. On Friday, defense was one of the reasons behind the Heat’s loss to the Pacers.
The Heat couldn’t survive the Pacers’ three-point barrage in a painful 111-108 loss on Friday night at FTX Arena. After moving above .500 for the first time this season last Saturday, the Heat (16-17) has opened its four-game homestand with two straight losses to again fall below .500 less than a week later.
The Pacers (17-16) shot 48.2 percent from the field and 21 of 47 (44.7 percent) from three-point range in the win. Indiana guard Tyrese Haliburton was the star of the night with a career-high 43 points and 10 made threes.
Haliburton’s 10th and final three of the night set a new Pacers single-game record and was the game-winner, as he broke a 108-108 tie by hitting a clutch three-pointer from 28 feet out with 4.3 seconds to play.
The Heat needed a big fourth-quarter run just to get to that point, trailing by 12 points with 4:34 left in the final period. Miami capped off a 15-3 run with a game-tying three-pointer from Tyler Herro with 14.9 seconds to play before Haliburton responded with the game-winner on the next possession.
It didn’t help the Heat’s cause that star Jimmy Butler did not play in the fourth quarter because of a sprained right ankle he sustained in Friday’s first quarter. Butler finished the loss with 20 points on 6-of-11 shooting from the field and 7-of-8 shooting from the foul line, six rebounds, three assists and two steals in 28 minutes before exiting the game with 1:19 left in the third quarter and never returning.
Butler was one of five Heat players to finish with double-digit points for the Heat on Friday.
Herro scored a team-high 28 points with the help of 5-of-13 shooting from deep.
Kyle Lowry recorded 21 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the field and 4-of-8 shooting from three-point range, six rebounds and five assists.
Bam Adebayo contributed 18 points on 8-of-19 shooting from the field, seven rebounds and three assists.
While Butler did miss the fourth quarter, injuries were not an issue for Miami entering Friday’s contest. The Heat was missing just two players due to injury and had its preferred starting lineup available for just the 12th game this season.
The Heat continues its homestand after Christmas on Monday against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Pacers on Friday:
The Heat looked to be finally nearing full health after battling injury issues throughout the first two months of the season. Then Butler turned his ankle.
Butler did not play in the fourth quarter against the Pacers after spraining his right ankle in the first quarter of Friday’s loss. He’ll be re-evaluated over the weekend, but there’s at least a chance that it could force him to again miss time
“Like it is with those things, we’ll have a better idea the next couple days,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But he did it in the first quarter. You could see he was able to still be in a little bit of a rhythm and a flow in the second quarter. But it tightened up at halftime and he wasn’t moving great in the third quarter. Then we all just made the decision, let’s be smart about this and then we’ll evaluate him [Saturday].”
Butler has already missed 12 of the Heat’s first 33 games this season with various injuries.
The Heat’s injury report for Monday’s matchup against the Timberwolves will be released on Sunday afternoon.
Entering Friday’s game before Butler’s latest ailment, it looked like the Heat was as healthy as it had been all season.
The Heat had 13 of its 16 players available for Friday’s loss. The only two players who missed the contest because of injuries were Dewayne Dedmon (left foot plantar fasciitis) and Omer Yurtseven (left ankle surgery), and Jamal Cain also was made inactive despite being with the team because Miami wanted to preserve the NBA days on his two-way contract.
That means Butler returned after missing the last game with a stomach illness, Lowry returned after missing the last three games with left knee soreness, Caleb Martin returned after missing the last two games because of a left ankle sprain and Gabe Vincent returned after missing the last eight games because of left knee effusion.
Spoelstra said of Vincent’s time away: “Thankfully it didn’t need any kind of procedure or anything. It just needed rest and then a ramp up. He’s passed every test to get to this point and we just want to keep him feeling good. Then we’ll see how he continues to respond. He’s had some really good work.”
Spoelstra added regarding Lowry’s time off: “From my standpoint, when you see guys that you know that are not moving the way that they’re capable of moving, you want to try to take care of it. I think these days have been really helpful and that he’s also been able to work behind the scenes. Big picture, I think that will be helpful.”
The Heat had been waiting for this day, as it entered Friday with the second-most missed games in the NBA (120 missed games) this season because of injury ahead of only the Orlando Magic (180 missed games), according to Spotrac.
But now the Heat waits to see how Butler’s sprained ankle will respond to treatment with the hope that it won’t need to play more games without him.
After shutting down Haliburton less than two weeks ago, the Heat didn’t have an answer for him on Friday.
Haliburton, 22, scored a season-low one point and missed each of his nine field-goal attempts in a Dec. 12 loss to the Heat in Indianapolis. Haliburton’s plan to try to isolate against Adebayo that night was a flawed one, as Adebayo was able to take him completely out of the game as one of the NBA’s top defenders.
On Friday, Haliburton exploded for career-highs in points and made threes. Instead of waiting for the switch to come, he just put up threes in the small window between the switch and that plan proved to be a better one.
“There were these moments in between the pick and roll, I thought he was really good,” Spoelstra said.
On the game-winner, Haliburton took advantage of a miscommunication between Herro and Lowry on a switch and dribbled into an open three-pointer to clinch the victory for the Pacers.
After Herro initially switched onto Haliburton on a ball screen, it appeared that Herro expected Lowry to recover back to Haliburton. As Herro floated away from Haliburton, Lowry was late to challenge what ended up as a quality three-point look that went in from 28 feet away with 4.3 seconds left on the clock.
“There was just kind of a miscommunication on that perimeter pick-and-roll,” Spoelstra said. “We defended most of those pretty well throughout the course of the night. Haliburton came off it and then he crossed back, so there was a little bit of a communication and confusion on who was taking him on that. That’s just unfortunate. He had a tremendous night. In a perfect would, you would just like to see anybody else but him shoot it in that situation.”
Lowry added: “Me and T just didn’t communicate well enough with the help. He thought I was going back and we left a guy with nine threes open. It’s our mistake and I take the blame on that one just trying to help. I should have just stayed on him a little bit.”
The one-point performance earlier this month was the outlier for Haliburton, who is averaging 20.7 points on 48.1 percent shooting from the field and 40.5 percent shooting from three-point range and 10.5 assists per game this season. He began the night as one of just one of seven players in the NBA averaging at least 20 points on at least 47 percent shooting from the field and 38 percent shooting on threes.
Following the game, Spoelstra said he believed Haliburton entered Friday’s matchup against the Heat motivated after former NBA player Wally Szczerbiak recently called Haliburton a “wanna-be All-Star” during an appearance on a New York Knicks postgame show.
“He’s being slandered for being a fake All-Star. I don’t even think it has anything to do with us, but of course he’s going to come in highly motivated and he did,” Spoelstra said. “He was knocking down some really tough shots at first. I think he got some clean looks during the course of the game and he just didn’t stop.”
The Heat was able to use its preferred starting lineup for just the 12th time this season.
It marked the first time Miami has been able to use its preferred starting unit of Lowry, Herro, Butler, Martin and Adebayo since its Dec. 12 road win over the Pacers.
Because of injury issues, this starting lineup had played in just 11 of the Heat’s first 32 games together prior to Friday’s loss. That limited time together was very productive, as the five-man combination entered the night outscoring opponents by 10.6 points per 100 possessions.
That trend continued on Friday, with the starting lineup outscoring the Pacers by six points in 16 minutes together. This group probably would have played some fourth-quarter minutes together, but Butler’s injury took away that late-game option.
With the Heat’s roster closer to full health, the rotation decisions are getting tougher for the coaching staff.
On Friday, Duncan Robinson and Vincent were the two semi-regulars who were left out of the bench mix. Duncan Robinson had played in each of the previous four games and Vincent had played in 19 of the first 20 games he had been available for prior to missing the previous eight games because of a knee injury.
Instead, the Heat went with a bench rotation of Victor Oladipo, Max Strus, Orlando Robinson and Haywood Highsmith. Orlando Robinson, who is on a two-way contract, played as Miami’s backup center with Dedmon out.
The Heat’s bench, which entered averaging the second-fewest points in the NBA at 26 per game this season, totaled 21 points on Friday.
Strus’ three-point shooting slump continued.
Strus finished with six points on 2-of-7 shooting from three-point range. As a team, the Heat shot 13 of 33 (39.4 percent) from deep in Friday’s loss.
Strus has shot just 19 of 77 (24.7 percent) from beyond the arc in the last 11 games. He’s shooting 32.8 percent from three-point range this season after making 41 percent of his threes last season.
This story was originally published December 23, 2022 at 10:37 PM.
