Takeaways from another ‘disappointing’ Heat loss, this one to Lakers without LeBron and Davis
.JPG "Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo, right, grabs a rebound away from Los Angeles Lakers center Thomas Bryant during the second half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023, in Los Angeles.")
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 112-109 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers (17-21) on Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena to drop to 2-2 on its five-game West Coast trip. The Heat (20-19) closes the trip on Friday against the Phoenix Suns:
The Lakers didn’t have their All-Star duo of Anthony Davis and LeBron James available, but the Heat still managed to lose to a short-handed team. Poor point-of-attack defense was to blame.
With Davis (right foot stress injury) and James (non-COVID illness) unavailable, the Lakers were missing 56.4 points per game. But the Heat could not take advantage of the Lakers’ short-handed roster.
“You have to credit the Lakers,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They played with a great motor, with a spirit with their guys out. We’ve had some wins like that as well, where we’ve had guys out and you can catch a team. I did not sense that at all during the course of the day. This is just a disappointing loss.”
The Lakers led by as many as 13 points in the first half before the Heat closed the second quarter on a 19-10 run to cut the deficit to four points entering halftime.
The teams traded punches in a back-and-forth third quarter that included eight lead changes and seven ties and ended with the Lakers ahead by one point.
The Heat opened the fourth quarter on an 11-4 run to take a six-point lead with 8:09 to play. But the Lakers controlled the rest of the game.
Los Angeles went on a 21-10 run to put itself in position to escape with the win, pulling ahead by five points with just 2:01 remaining.
Lakers guard Dennis Schroder really put the Heat in a rough spot when he drove through Miami’s defense for a layup to put Los Angeles ahead by four and make it a two possession game with 20.3 seconds remaining.
After the teams traded baskets, Heat forward Max Strus hit a three-pointer to cut the deficit to one point with four seconds left.
The Heat then committed an intentional foul and Schroder hit both free throws to push the Lakers’ lead to three with 3.2 seconds remaining.
With no timeouts left, the Heat had one last shot to extend the game as Jimmy Butler put up a three-pointer from the right wing that would have tied the game. But it bounced off the rim as the final buzzer sounded.
Schroder led the short-handed Lakers with a game-high 32 points on 8-of-15 shooting from the field, 4-of-7 shooting on three-point range and 12-of-14 shooting from the foul line. He scored 14 points in the fourth quarter with the help of 9-of-9 shooting from the free-throw line.
Russell Westbrook added 21 points, eight rebounds and nine assists off the Lakers’ bench.
Lakers center Thomas Bryant contributed 21 points and 10 rebounds, including 11 points on 5-of-5 shooting in the fourth quarter.
The Lakers ended up scoring on 11 of their final 12 possessions on Wednesday. Nearly all of the Lakers’ offense during this late-game stretch was generated by dribble penetration from Schroder and Westbrook, who were able to consistently blow by the Heat’s point-of-attack defense.
As a result, the Lakers scored 20 of their 33 fourth-quarter points in the paint on 10-of-13 shooting from that area of the court.
“We got to find a way to guard the ball,” Butler said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Even with the Lakers missing Davis and James, the Heat still found itself in its league-leading 27th clutch game of the season. A clutch game is defined as a game that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter.
The Heat fell to 15-12 in clutch games.
“There were so many opportunities to really put our fingerprints on the game and we didn’t,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “I don’t think it was just down the stretch. I think it was missed free throws, missed box outs. There are just so many reasons to the game.”
After totaling a season-low in points just two nights before, Butler bounced back but others around him not named Bam Adebayo struggled to make shots.
Butler, who has been working to manage his right knee issue, scored a season-low nine points on 2-of-8 shooting from the field in Monday’s win over the Clippers.
But Butler responded by recording 27 points on 11-of-22 shooting from the field, four rebounds and four assists in Wednesday’s loss.
Butler’s best stretch came in the third quarter when he scored 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field in the period.
Adebayo was the only other Heat player who scored more than 12 points for the Heat on Wednesday, finishing with 30 points, 13 rebounds and three assists. He has reached the 30-point mark in three straight games for the first time in his NBA career.
But Heat guard Tyler Herro, who scored more than 20 points in each of the three previous games, ended the night with just nine points on 4-of-14 shooting from the field and 1-of-5 shooting from three-point range. It marked the fewest points he has scored in a game since scoring eight in a Dec. 12 win over the Indiana Pacers.
Taking out Adebayo and Butler’s stat lines, the rest of the Heat’s roster combined to score 52 points on 19-of-50 (38 percent) shooting from the field and 6-of-24 (25 percent) shooting from three-point range.
Those shooting struggles led to the Heat’s half-court offense scoring at a very inefficient rate of 76.7 points per 100 half-court plays on Wednesday. When scoring 87 points or fewer per 100 half-court plays, the Heat is 1-9 this season.
“I think our overall offense was sluggish, particularly how we were executing earlier on this trip,” Spoelstra said. “Even the Denver loss, we were moving the defense, working together to generate a lot of looks. This was more in the mud and weren’t really moving our bodies, getting to early triggers and then moving the ball and finding the advantage. It was pretty much kind of walking to a trigger, let the defense get set and then work against the second half of the clock. And that’s just not the style we’ve been playing.”
Even on a day Duncan Robinson underwent successful finger surgery, there was an encouraging sign that the Heat is finally getting healthier.
The Heat started its preferred starting lineup of Kyle Lowry, Herro, Caleb Martin, Butler and Adebayo for the second straight game and just the 14th game this season.
It marked the first time the Heat has been able to use the same starting lineup in consecutive games in nearly a month since a Dec. 10 loss to the San Antonio Spurs and a Dec. 12 win over the Indiana Pacers.
While the availability of the Heat’s preferred starting unit has been limited by injuries this season, it has been effective in its time together. The Lowry-Herro-Martin-Butler-Adebayo lineup entered Wednesday outscoring opponents by 8.1 points per 100 possessions in 184 minutes this season.
On Wednesday, that starting lineup outscored the Lakers by three points in 13 minutes together. But this group was used for only a few seconds in the game-deciding fourth quarter as Spoelstra instead opted to play a lineup that included Lowry, Butler, Herro, Victor Oladipo and Adebayo for most of the period.
The only three Heat players unavailable for Wednesday’s game were Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Robinson (right finger surgery) and Omer Yurtseven (left ankle surgery). All three players are expected to miss at least the next month of games.
Robinson underwent successful surgery to repair a ligament of the second finger in his right hand on Wednesday, the team announced. The 35-minute procedure was performed at the Linden Surgery Center by Dr. Steven Shinn at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, and Robinson will begin rehab next week and be re-evaluated in approximately four weeks.
Even with veteran center Dewayne Dedmon returning, the Heat still made two-way contract center Orlando Robinson active. Both received playing time as the backup center on Wednesday.
Robinson played the first backup center minutes against the Lakers, going scoreless and not coming away with a rebound in four first-quarter minutes. But that was his only stint of the game.
Dedmon then entered when Adebayo went to the bench for the second time. Dedmon also went scoreless but grabbed three rebounds in three second-quarter minutes.
Adebayo only spent 3:10 on the bench in the second half, and Dedmon was also used in his place during that stretch.
Dedmon closed the game with two points, three rebounds and one block in seven minutes.
Dedmon, who missed the previous six games because of left foot plantar fasciitis and health and safety protocols, has been the Heat’s backup center this season when available.
But Robinson, an undrafted rookie, opened eyes with his work as the fill-in backup center while Dedmon was out. He only averaged six points while shooting 15 of 26 (57.7 percent) from the field, 4.7 rebounds and one assist, but the biggest thing is his minutes have been a net-positive for the Heat.
In the 12 games Robinson has played in this season, the Heat has outscored opponents by 2.2 points per 100 possessions with him on the court.
Meanwhile, Dedmon has struggled to provide positive minutes for the Heat off the bench. The Heat has been outscored by 9.2 points per 100 possessions with Dedmon on the court this season.
The issue for the Heat is Robinson’s availability is limited by his two-way contract.
While on a two-way contract, Robinson can’t be poached away from the Heat by another NBA team. But he’s only permitted to be on the Heat’s active list for 22 more games this regular season and he’s not eligible to take part in the NBA playoffs unless he’s converted to a standard deal.
The Heat used both Dedmon and Robinson as the backup center on Wednesday. It remains to be seen how the team handles this spot in the rotation moving forward when both are available.
Adebayo received well-deserved praise from Lakers coach Darvin Ham before the game.
The 25-year-old Adebayo is in the middle of his best NBA season, as he entered Wednesday averaging a career-high 21.5 points on 53.9 percent shooting from the field, 9.9 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game while still providing his All-NBA level defense. He has emerged as one of the NBA’s top centers and is making a strong case to be voted into his second NBA All-Star Game.
When asked about Adebayo prior to Wednesday’s game, Ham called him “a phenomenal young player.”
“The kid has great feet, great active hands,” Ham said. “Obviously, he plays offense and defense above the rim. Really good lateral quickness. Really quick twitch in terms of after he slides to keep the ball in front of him, the ability to spring up quickly and get a block or a good contest on a shot. He’s second to none in that area. And offensively, just his ability to handle the ball and play-make. He’s a really underrated passer in my opinion and he plays with such force. He forces you to put multiple bodies around him, shot goes up and you got to account for him.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 12:45 AM.
