Takeaways from Heat’s win over Pacers behind Adebayo and Butler on eve of trade deadline
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 116-111 win over the Indiana Pacers (25-31) on Wednesday night at Miami-Dade Arena to open a two-game homestand. The Heat (30-25) closes the short homestand on Friday against the Houston Rockets:
On the eve of Thursday’s 3 p.m. NBA trade deadline, the Heat earned a comeback win behind the excellence of Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler.
The Heat needed to take advantage of the reeling Pacers, which is now just 2-13 in their last 15 games. And Miami did just that to snap a two-game losing skid and stay in sixth place in the Eastern Conference.
The Heat’s leading duo of Adebayo and Butler imposed their will and carried the team to the victory, combining for 63 points on 34 field-goal attempts.
Adebayo tied a season-high with 38 points on 12-of-16 shooting from the field and 14-of-14 shooting from the foul line, nine rebounds and three assists. He has reached the 30-point mark in 19 games during his NBA career, and 10 of those games have come this season.
Butler finished with 25 points on 9-of-18 shooting from the field and 7-of-8 shooting from the foul line, five rebounds and seven assists.
“We did a great job of just being assertive,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Bam and Jimmy, them being able to the free-throw line just allows you to control the game.”
But as usual, the Heat’s win did not come easy. It turned into Miami’s league-leading 38th clutch game (one that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter) of the season.
The Heat led by as many as 16 points in the first quarter after a fast start that could not be sustained. The Pacers won the second quarter 33-21 to rally and enter halftime ahead 63-60.
Indiana had very little trouble against Miami’s top-five defense in the first half. The Pacers shot 60 percent from the field and 7 of 12 (58.3 percent) on threes while committing just two turnovers in the first two quarters build a three-point lead heading into halftime.
But that’s when Butler took over in the third quarter to help the Heat regain momentum. After the Pacers pulled ahead by nine points with 8:49 left in the third quarter, the Heat closed the period on a 27-12 run to enter the fourth quarter with a six-point lead.
After scoring nine points and shooting just one free throw in the first half, Butler came alive to score 14 points on 4-of-7 shooting from the field and 6-of-7 shooting from the foul line in the third quarter.
“People started talking to me,” Butler said of the Pacers’ trash talking that helped lead to his aggressiveness in the third quarter. “I just be trying to hoop, honestly. And then you got some bumping of the gums and it’s like attack mode from there on out.”
The Heat’s lead grew to as many as 12 points early in the fourth quarter, but the Pacers made a late push to trim the deficit to just one with 6:15 to play.
That’s the closest the Pacers got, as the Heat closed the game on a 17-13 run to seal the victory.
Besides Adebayo and Butler’s dominance, another reason for the Heat’s win on Wednesday? Miami’s efficiency in the midrange.
The Heat finished 21 of 43 (48.8 percent) from midrange. Not only is that efficient, but that’s also a lot of midrange shot attempts.
More than half of the Heat’s 79 total field-goal attempts came from the midrange, as it finished just 6 of 19 from three-point range. The 19 three-point attempts represented a season-low for Miami.
With the Heat generating so many midrange shots, it was a good thing that a high percentage went in to keep the offense humming along.
Like most of went right for the Heat on Wednesday, Adebayo and Butler deserved most of the credit for the team’s midrange success.
Adebayo shot 10 of 14 and Butler shot 6 of 11 from the midrange.
It also helps that the Heat shot 36 of 39 from the foul line on Wednesday, outscoring the Pacers 36-20 at the charity stripe.
“I think the difference was we shot 40 free throws,” Adebayo said. “I mean, when we have that type of aggressiveness from the jump and we’re getting to the foul line, it takes a lot of pressure off the threes.”
While the difference between midrange and three-point attempts was drastic on Wednesday, it represented the continuation of a recent trend amid the Heat’s three-point struggles this season.
The Heat has now attempted more shots from midrange than three-point range in nine of its last 13 games. This happened in just nine of the Heat’s first 42 games of the season.
With midrange shots considered less efficient than three-point attempts, the Heat’s location effective field-goal percentage (if a team shot league average from each location based on its shot chart) is ranked third-worst in the NBA since the start of January, according to Cleaning the Glass.
“I say we can out-two anybody in the league,” Butler said. “Sooner or later, we’re going to start taking more threes and making more threes. But I think if we’re going to the battle of the twos, we got to be top in the league at midrange jump shots and layups and free throws.”
Gabe Vincent again started for the Heat at point guard in place of the injured Kyle Lowry, who was not in the building for Wednesday’s game.
With Lowry missing his second straight game because of left knee soreness, Vincent made his seventh start of the season on Wednesday to finish with 17 points while shooting 4 of 11 from the field, 3 of 7 on threes and 6 of 7 from the foul line to go wth four rebounds and three assists in 37 minutes.
Vincent started hot, scoring 11 of the Heat’s first 21 points. But he did not score again until the fourth quarter.
The Heat already announced that Lowry will also miss at least the next two games before being further evaluated. In addition, Lowry is among Heat players available in trade talks ahead of Thursday’s deadline.
Lowry was not at Miami-Dade Arena for Wednesday’s win because of what the team labeled as an excused absence amid the swirling trade rumors.
“I told Kyle, you got to control what you can control,” Butler said following Wednesday’s win when asked about his close friend’s situation. “That’s my guy and I love him to death. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I love Kyle as an NBA player, as a human being. I want to play with Kyle. But so much is out of my control just like so much is out of his control. He can be my guy forever and I want him to be my teammate forever. Whatever happens, happens.”
With so much uncertainty surrounding Lowry’s short-term and long-term future with the Heat, Vincent could have an opportunity to play as the starting point guard for more than just the next few games.
Vincent, 26, entered Wednesday averaging 9.3 points on an inefficient 39.9 percent shooting from the field and 32.2 percent shooting from three-point range, 2.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 40 games this season. But he has been shooting a little better recently, making 35.1 percent of his threes since the start of January.
The Heat had 11 players available against the Pacers, including recently signed guard Jamaree Bouyea.
The Heat was without Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Lowry (left knee soreness), Victor Oladipo (right ankle sprain), Duncan Robinson (finger surgery) and Omer Yurtseven (left ankle surgery) on Wednesday.
But Miami still had 11 available players. That’s because Bouyea signed a 10-day contract with the Heat and two-way contract forward Jamal Cain rejoined the Heat from the G League on Wednesday to help provide some much-needed depth.
And depth is all Bouyea and Cain were against the Pacers because they didn’t play. Instead, the Heat went with a short eight-man rotation on Wednesday.
Bouyea, who went undrafted last year out of San Francisco, is a familiar face.
Bouyea, 23, has impressed as a member of the Heat’s G League affiliate this season. He has averaged 19 points on 52.2 percent shooting from the field but just 29.3 percent shooting from three-point range, 5.3 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 1.4 steals in 16 appearances for the Sioiux Falls Skyforce.
Bouyea (6-2, 180 pounds) was also part of the Heat’s summer league team this year, signing an Exhibit 10 contract with Miami in July. He was waived just before the start of the regular season before agreeing to stay within the Heat’s developmental program and play for the Skyforce.
“He has gotten a lot better,” Spoelstra said Wednesday of Bouyea. “He gives you that speed and quickness factor that is unique and he’s made progress defensively. He can be extremely disruptive with that quickness. And then in terms of getting a team organized and all that stuff, that will be something that he’ll continue to work on.”
After trading veteran Dewayne Dedmon to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday, the Heat continued to use undrafted rookie Orlando Robinson as its backup center.
Orlando Robinson, who missed the previous two games with a fractured right thumb, made his return with a splint on his injured finger to finish Wednesday’s win with two points, two rebounds and one assist in 11 minutes off the bench. The Heat outscored the Pacers by three points in Robinson’s minutes.
Dedmon began the season as the Heat’s backup center, but struggled to produce positive results and lost that job to Robinson about a month ago. Robinson has provided stability in that role, with the Heat outscoring opponents by 4.7 points per 100 possessions in his minutes since the start of January.
The issue is Robinson can only be on the Heat’s active roster for just eight more games this regular season as part of his two-way contract before he’s forced to log the rest of his game minutes in the G League. But the Dedmon trade created enough space below the luxury tax threshold to convert Robinson to a standard contract in order to bypass those restrictions while still avoiding the tax — a move that would make him eligible for every remaining Heat game this season, including the playoffs.
In addition, center Omer Yurtseven continues to progress in his recovery from left ankle surgery and is expected to return after the mid-February All-Star break. Yurtseven, who has yet to play this season because of the ankle issue, will challenge Robinson for the backup center role when he comes back.
Asked about the Heat’s decision to trade Dedmon and an unprotected 2028 second-round pick to the Spurs for cash considerations, Spoelstra said Wednesday: “First, we feel grateful and appreciative that we were able to get Dewayne when we did two years ago and he helped us. So this is a move that we felt made the most sense just from a roster flexibility standpoint.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2023 at 10:18 PM.
