Heat escapes with win over Pelicans behind turnover-forcing defense. Takeaways and details
This went much different than the Miami Heat’s first matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans less than a week ago. But the result was the same.
After earning a 26-point victory over the Pelicans in New Orleans on Wednesday for its most lopsided win of the season, the Heat’s second matchup against the Pelicans in five days came down to the final seconds.
But the Heat (26-22) escaped with a 100-96 comeback win over the short-handed Pelicans (26-21) on Sunday afternoon at Miami-Dade Arena to kick off a three-game homestand. The Heat has won 14 of its last 21 games following a 12-15 start to the season.
The Heat trailed by as many as 16 points in the first half, but battled its way back to make it a close game that included seven fourth-quarter lead changes before eventually coming away with the win.
“You just got to stay with it,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “Afternoon games, those are never easy anyways to start off with. And then when you go turnover after turnover to start with low energy, we kind of dug ourselves a hole by coming out the way we came out. But we responded and we got the win. I guess that’s all that matters.”
Point guard Kyle Lowry took charge late to carry the Heat down the stretch, scoring nine straight points for Miami during a span that began with 3:03 left in the fourth quarter and ended with 1:21 to play.
The game still came down to the final possession.
With the Heat ahead by two points with 15.1 seconds to play, the Pelicans committed a costly five-second violation that looked to erase any hopes they had for a win.
But the Heat could not complete a clean inbounds pass on the ensuing possession, as the Pelicans forced a jump ball on the pass in.
The Pelicans won the jump ball to get possession and one more chance to tie the game or hit a game-winner. After calling for a timeout to advance the ball past half court, CJ McCollum missed a three-pointer that would have put the Pelicans ahead by one point with 7.6 seconds left.
Victor Oladipo grabbed the defensive rebound for the Heat and was intentionally fouled by the Pelicans with 6.9 seconds remaining to preserve the clock. Oladipo made both free throws to clinch the four-point win.
Behind his late-game push, Lowry closed with 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting from three-point range in 30 minutes. It marked the most points he has scored in nearly a month since an 18-point performance in a Dec. 26 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Herro finished Sunday’s win with a team-high 26 points to go with eight rebounds and four assists.
Heat center Bam Adebayo contributed 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field, nine rebounds and two assists.
Heat wing Jimmy Butler recorded 18 points with the help of 8-of-10 shooting from the foul line, four rebounds, two assists and five steals.
The first half was ugly for the Heat and it could have been even worse if it wasn’t for a strong close to the second quarter.
The Heat opened just 1 of 12 from three-point range and committed 14 first-half turnovers that the Pelicans turned into 21 points.
But after finding itself in a 16-point hole with less than two minutes left in the first half, the Heat forced five Pelicans turnovers in the final 1:24 of the second quarter to spark a 10-0 run that cut the deficit to six points entering halftime.
“It was taxing when it feels like it’s mistake after mistake,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of winning Sunday despite the ugly first half. “But that’s also not giving them credit. They are really good at what they do. They play extremely hard and I think the last four minutes of the second quarter and probably the last four minutes of the game were the best we were.”
The Heat continues the homestand on Tuesday with an Eastern Conference finals rematch against the Boston Celtics.
Five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the Pelicans on Sunday:
The Heat won the game behind its defense. The victory certainly didn’t come because of its offense.
The Heat shot just 8 of 34 (23.5 percent) from three-point range and committed 22 turnovers on Sunday. Miami scored just 81 points per 100 half-court plays for a half-court offensive rating that ranks in the NBA’s 11th percentile for the season.
Instead, the Heat’s best offense came through its defense, totaling 28 points on 25 Pelicans turnovers.
The Heat limited the Pelicans to just 49 points in the second half by forcing 13 turnovers that it turned into 15 points in the final two quarters. Miami won the second half 59-49 to rally for the win.
New Orleans also shot just 8 of 30 (26.7 percent) on threes on Sunday.
“I keep saying it, but I feel like we’re one of those teams where if we can play, get stops and run in transition, we’re a hard team to beat,” Adebayo said.
While the Heat’s half-court offense was bad, the Pelicans were even worse. New Orleans scored just 68.2 points per 100 half-court plays on Sunday for a half-court offensive rating that ranks in the NBA’s first percentile for the season.
The Heat holds the NBA’s sixth-best defensive rating this season and the unit is at its best when it is forcing turnovers. Miami owns the NBA’s second-highest opponent turnover rate, forcing opponents into a turnover on 16.9 percent of their offensive possessions this season.
That strength was again on full display on Sunday and it’s a big reason why the Heat improved to 2-9 in games when scoring fewer than 85 points per 100 half-court plays this season.
Lowry was aggressive and assertive in the fourth quarter, which was a welcomed development.
After recording just eight points on 2-of-4 shooting from the field in the first three quarters on Sunday, Lowry scored nine points on 4-of-5 shooting from the field and 1-of-2 shooting from three-point range in the fourth quarter.
And each of Lowry’s fourth-quarter points and shots came in the final 3:03 of the game.
“We had some really good execution down the stretch and Kyle was a major part of that,” Spoelstra said. “They were bottling up some other stuff and he just kind of went vintage there and made a lot of big plays going down the stretch.”
This was an encouraging stretch for Lowry, who had totaled just 12 points on eight shots in his first two games since returning from left knee discomfort that forced him to miss time. He nearly matched that point total in the fourth quarter of his third game back on Sunday.
Lowry, 36, is averaging 12.8 points per game on 40.9 percent shooting from the field this season. It’s the fewest points he has averaged and the worst he has shot from the field in a season since his first year with the Toronto Raptors in 2012-13 when he averaged 11.6 points per game on 40.1 percent shooting from the field.
The Heat again had the health advantage over the Pelicans.
Just like in last week’s matchup in New Orleans, the Pelicans were without two of their best players against the Heat on Sunday. The Pelicans were missing starters Brandon Ingram (toe contusion) and Zion Wiliamson (hamstring strain).
The Heat was only without Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Duncan Robinson (finger surgery) and Omer Yurtseven (ankle surgery) on Sunday. Forward Jamal Cain was also made inactive for the contest to save an NBA day on his two-way contract.
With a relatively healthy roster for one of the few times this season, the Heat was able to again use its preferred starting lineup of Lowry, Herro, Butler, Caleb Martin and Adebayo on Sunday for the third straight game and just the 17th time in the first 48 games of the season.
The longest string of consecutive games that Miami has been able to go with this starting unit is four, and that stretch came in the second week of the season in late October. Injuries issues have limited this group’s availability.
This Heat entered with the second-most missed games in the NBA (197 missed games) this season due to injury, according to Spotrac.
The Heat had the healthier team on Sunday, though.
But for the second straight game, the Heat’s preferred starting lineup did not produce positive results.
After the combination of Lowry, Herro, Butler, Martin and Adebayo was outscored by 13 points in 14 minutes together in Friday’s blowout loss in Dallas, the unit was again a net negative but had one positive stretch on Sunday.
The group was outscored by four points in 12 minutes together in the Heat’s home win over the Pelicans.
That includes a 18-8 deficit to open the game before the Heat turned to its bench. But the lineup made up for that slow start by beginning the second half with a 17-11 run.
Before this two-game stretch, this five-man unit was among the best lineups in the NBA. This lineup had outscored opponents by 11.1 points per 100 possessions in 211 minutes together this season before these last two games.
When asked about this starting group, Spoelstra said a few days ago that he wanted “to see it through” because “we owe it to that group to give them an opportunity to gain some continuity.” He again made it clear on Sunday that he wants to give the lineup more time together.
“We need some more minutes and games where that group can play together where they can figure it out,” Spoelstra said. “We can work on it, we can coach it, we can watch film. Ultimately, they need the time under fire in the game.”
Butler saw consistent double teams for a second straight game, but he seemed to find some answers to beating the coverage in the second half of Sunday’s win.
Butler scored just five points on 2-of-4 shooting from the field and did not have an assist in the first half, as the Pelicans doubled Butler whenever he turned his back to the basket to attempt a post-up.
In the second half, Butler didn’t wait for the double team. He scored on a few catch-and-gos and started many of his drives from the perimeter instead of working from the post, quickly attacking to get downhill before the second defender was able to impact the play.
When the second defender did get to Butler, he attempted to find the open teammate on the backend of the double team by starting a swing-swing sequence. But the Heat’s three-point shooting issues did not make the Pelicans pay nearly enough for their double teams on Butler.
Butler recorded 13 points in the second half on 3-of-3 shooting from the field and 7-of-9 shooting from the foul line.
“It was better than certainly Dallas [on Friday],” Spoelstra said when asked about how the Heat handled the double teams thrown at Butler on Sunday. “And good, we’re going to see this a lot more and we’re just going to continue to get better at it.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2023 at 6:13 PM.
