Spoelstra laments late-game sequence, Bam hurting and other takeaways from Heat loss to Nets
The first half of the Miami Heat’s season was filled with up-and-down play that led to underwhelming results.
The Heat (21-20) had a chance to reach the midway point of its schedule with one of its best wins of the season, but fell just short in a 102-101 loss to the Brooklyn Nets (27-13) on Sunday to open a four-game homestand at FTX Arena. The Nets improved to 18-2 in their last 20 games.
“I think we did what we needed to do to win the game,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s just a shame that that didn’t turn out to be a W for us. I’m still shocked. I thought we outplayed them in the fourth.”
The Heat held a one-point lead in the final seconds, but the Nets won on a put-back floater from Royce O’Neale with 3.2 seconds on the clock. Brooklyn guard Kyrie Irving’s three-pointer to start the possession landed in the hands of O’Neal, who went back up and delivered the game-winner.
The Heat still had a chance to escape with the win.
After advancing the ball up the court following a timeout, Heat star Jimmy Butler received the inbounds pass in the mid-post and drove to the basket but missed the layup as the final buzzer sounded. O’Neale looked to make contact as Butler elevated for the layup, but a foul was not called.
There was significant injury news on both sides.
Heat center Bam Adebayo did not play the final 5:11 of the game because of a right hand injury.
Nets star Kevin Durant exited the game with 36.6 seconds left in the third quarter because of a right knee injury and never returned.
But the Nets were the ones that managed to edge out the win in the final seconds despite a strong effort from Miami’s defense against their high-powered offense.
The Nets totaled just 36 points on 43.2 percent shooting from the field and 3-of-17 shooting on threes while committing 13 turnovers in the second half. The problem was that the Heat’s offense wasn’t any better and arguably worse, scoring 37 points on 27.3 percent shooting from the field and 6-of-19 (31.6 percent) shooting on threes in the second half.
Butler scored a team-high 26 points and grabbed eight rebounds for the Heat. Tyler Herro contributed 24 points on 8-of-21 shooting from the field.
Irving led Brooklyn with 29 points and six assists.
The Heat continues the homestand on Tuesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Nets on Sunday:
Spoelstra made clear that he felt like the Heat did enough to win, even expressing disappointment on a late-game call by the officials.
After Butler received the inbounds pass on the final possession with the Heat trailing by one point, he drove into the paint and drew contract from O’Neale as he went up for what would have been the game-winning layup with 0.5 seconds to play. Butler missed the layup and the officials did not call a foul on O’Neale.
The officials ruled that O’Neale, who was rotating over from the weakside to challenge Butler at the rim, remained in a vertical position and did not jump into Butler’s body. But Spoelstra saw it differently.
“I just don’t think he was vertical, I don’t think he was set,” Spoelstra said of O’Neale when asked about that sequence. “I think it was not the classic A to B and I don’t think he was in position. I’m sure they’ll say otherwise and at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. But I think that earned the right to go to the free-throw line and see if we could have won the game. I don’t think we could have gotten anything better than that opportunity.”
Butler said he did not feel like he was fouled on the final possession and added that “I got to make that.”
As for the game-winning put-back by O’Neale on the previous possession, Spoelstra called it a “crazy circumstance.” After Irving’s missed three-pointer, the ball bounced off multiple bodies and landed right in O’Neal’s hands by the rim.
O’Neale went right back up and made the game-winning floater with 3.2 seconds left.
“If you ran that last play with Irving shooting that three and that missed rebound, I think nine out of 10 times, we come up with that rebound,” Spoelstra said. “It was just a crazy circumstance of colliding bodies and then O’Neale, just the ball popping up and him being right there at the rim for a put-back. That one is tough.
“I thought we had enough guys down there. I think [Orlando Robinson] had a really good block out on their best offensive rebounder with [Nic] Claxton and Kyle [Lowry] and [Yuta] Watanabe just collided. I think Kyle ended up taking out Tyler, Watanabe took out Kyle. [Victor Oladipo] was down there somewhere and then all of a sudden O’Neale ended up with the ball and nobody around. That’s just a crazy circumstance. ... It’s just a shame that with the efforts that the ball didn’t bounce in our hands instead.”
Adebayo did not play down the stretch because of a hand injury, which is concerning.
Adebayo finished Sunday’s loss with 10 points, eight rebounds and two assists in 28 minutes. But he exited the game with 5:11 left in the fourth quarter and did not return because of a right hand injury.
Adebayo entered the game with a bruised thigh, but that was not the reason he was benched midway through the fourth quarter.
Adebayo said his right hand has been bothering him for a few days and he re-aggravated it in the first half of Sunday’s loss to the Nets.
“I don’t know how he’ll feel tomorrow,” Spoelstra said. “There was a really hard hand contusion in the first half and he tried to gut it out in the second half, and you could see he was basically playing with one hand. It was just extremely sore. So I had to make that tough call and take the decision out of his hands in the fourth quarter and we’ll just evaluate him tomorrow.”
Adebayo had X-rays on the injured hand that returned negative. Adebayo called it a “day-to-day” injury and said no MRI is planned.
“We’re just going to go get it checked out to make sure,” Adebayo added.
The Heat has dealt with plenty of injuries, but losing Adebayo for an extended stretch would be a big blow. The Heat has been outscored by 5.6 points per 100 possessions without him on the court this season.
Herro also appeared to get hurt late in the game, when he slipped on a wet spot on the court during the final possession. But he said after the game that he’s fine.
Orlando Robinson played ahead of Dewayne Dedmon as the Heat’s backup center on Sunday.
Dedmon has been used as the backup center this season basically in every game that he has been available for. But not on Sunday.
With Dedmon’s ongoing struggles as he plays through a lingering case of plantar fasciitis in his left foot, the Heat played Robinson ahead of him as the backup center against the Nets.
Robinson finished with six points, nine rebounds and two assists in 20 minutes. Maybe the most important part of his stat line was that he finished with a plus/minus of plus-24.
That’s because the Heat has not won the non-Adebayo minutes in many games this season with Dedmon as the backup. The Heat has been outscored by 9.9 points per 100 possessions with Dedmon on the court this season.
The question is whether this pattern will continue with Dedmon as an established veteran and Robinson as an undrafted rookie on a two-way contract.
“Basically everybody is on the table right now,” Spoelstra said when asked about his decision to play Robinson over Dedmon on Sunday. “We need contributions from everybody, anybody and it might differ from game to game. It made the most sense we felt tonight with Orlando and we’ll just see where it goes from here. It’s not an indictment on Dewayne at all, particularly as he’s starting to feel much better.”
It’s worth noting that Robinson is only permitted to be on the Heat’s active list for 20 more games this regular season and is not eligible to take part in the playoffs as part his two-way contract.
The Heat has one open spot on its 15-man roster that it could use to sign Robinson to a standard contract to avoid those restrictions, but converting his two-way to a standard deal would currently push Miami into the luxury tax. To avoid entering the tax, the Heat will have to wait until late March to convert Robinson to a standard contract.
After learning on Saturday that his full $1.8 million salary for this season would be guaranteed by the Heat, forward Haywood Highsmith made his sixth start of the season.
Highsmith started on Sunday in place of the injured Caleb Martin, who missed his second straight game because of a strained left quadriceps.
Highsmith closed Sunday’s loss with 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting from the field and 2-of-2 shooting on threes and three rebounds in 18 minutes. He also spent most of his minutes as Durant’s primary defender.
The Heat guaranteed the remaining $1.1 million due on the partially guaranteed contract of Highsmith by keeping him on the roster beyond Saturday’s 5 p.m. deadline.
Highsmith will now get his full $1.8 million salary for this season. Players around the NBA with partial guarantees in their deals needed to be waived by 5 p.m. on Saturday to avoid their contracts becoming fully guaranteed for this season.
Highsmith, 26, remains eligible to be traded this season.
Along with Martin, the Heat was also without Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Duncan Robinson (finger surgery) and Omer Yurtseven (ankle surgery) on Sunday.
Spoelstra was among those happy to see the Miami Dolphins clinch their first trip to the playoffs since 2016.
The Dolphins punched their ticket to the playoffs in the final week of the regular season with an 11-6 win over the New York Jets paired with the Buffalo Bills’ win over the New England Patriots on Sunday.
“It’s been fun. I’ve enjoyed the entire road,” Spoelstra said when asked about the Dolphins’ playoff berth. “I got to go to a training camp practice and hang out with them and see their process and then this year’s been all-eventful, it’s been everything. It’s been fun. It’s been great for the city. And I just enjoy seeing teams come together, particularly when there is adversity and figuring some things out, and then squeezing into the playoffs with a super-low-scoring game. It’s been a fun ride.”
The Dolphins will now open the postseason against the Bills next week in Buffalo at a date and time to be determined
This story was originally published January 8, 2023 at 8:38 PM.
