Heat’s struggles continue in fourth straight defeat. Takeaways, details from loss to Hornets
.JPG "Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler (22) attempts to block a shot from Charlotte Hornets forward Gordon Hayward during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023, in Charlotte, N.C.")
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 108-103 loss to the Charlotte Hornets (19-43) on Saturday night at Spectrum Center. The Heat (32-29) has dropped four straight games and fell to 0-2 on its three-game trip, which ends Monday with a matchup against the 76ers in Philadelphia.
The Heat lost a matchup between two of the league’s worst offenses.
The Heat entered with the NBA’s fifth-worst offensive rating and the Hornets entered with the NBA’s second-worst offensive rating this season. Charlotte, which holds the NBA’s fourth-worst record, is also one of only two teams in the league that has shot worse than Miami from three-point range this season.
Both offenses were bad on Saturday, but Miami’s offense was a little bit worse than Charlotte’s and that proved to be the difference.
With both teams playing on the second night of a back-to-back set, the Heat shot 40 percent from the field, 11 of 36 (30.6 percent) from three-point range and 28 of 34 (82.4 percent) from the foul line while the Hornets shot 43.2 percent from the field, 10 of 31 (32.3 percent) from three-point range and 22 of 27 (81.5 percent) from the foul line.
The Heat posted a dismal offensive rating of 99 points scored per 100 possessions with the help of 18 turnovers and the Hornets posted a poor but better offensive rating of 103.8 points scored per 100 possessions. Both single-game offensive ratings would be the worst in the NBA when compared to the league’s season-long rankings.
The Heat’s shooting issues made for a very ugly first half, opening the game by making just seven of its first 33 (21.2 percent) field-goal attempts and one of its first 11 (9.1 percent) three-point attempts. Miami fell behind by as many as 22 points with 5:43 left in the second quarter.
But the Heat finally strung together a few made shots to close the first half on a 25-6 run to cut the deficit to just three points entering halftime.
“I liked seeing our guys grind through a pretty ugly first half,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “That’s part of the grit that you want to be able to develop that you can put yourself in a position to win.”
The Heat’s momentum didn’t carry into the third quarter, with the Hornets opening the second half on a 21-11 run to push their lead back up to 13 points before entering the fourth quarter ahead 82-72.
The Heat responded by beginning the fourth quarter on a 16-6 run to tie the game at 88 with 7:53 to play.
The game turned into the Heat’s league-leading 42nd clutch game (one that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter) of the season.
But after a dunk from Heat center Bam Adebayo cut the deficit to just one point with 2:06 remaining, Miami never scored again.
Adebayo committed a turnover on the Heat’s next offensive possession, losing control of his dribble while trying to complete a spin move in transition with 1:30 to play.
Tyler Herro missed a three-pointer on the Heat’s following offensive possession with 1:03 left.
Then Jimmy Butler lost control of his dribble while attacking the paint for the Heat’s third straight empty offensive possession down the stretch. Hornets guard Dennis Smith Jr. came away with the steal.
“They converged in the paint, active hands,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s two late-game turnovers. “That’s kind of what they’ve done all season long. They’ve been a very disruptive defensive team in terms of deflections, steals and things of that nature. They were just able to force a couple of turnovers down the stretch.”
The Hornets took advantage, scoring the final four points of the game to escape with the victory.
“It kept going back and forth, but I feel like our mistakes on both sides of the ball really bit us in the end there,” Heat forward Kevin Love said.
Herro led the Heat with a game-high 33 points on 10-of-23 shooting from the field, 6-of-12 shooting on threes and 7-of-7 shooting from the foul line, seven rebounds and five assists.
Butler was also excellent, finishing with 28 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field and 16-of-20 shooting from the foul line, three rebounds and six assists.
But the rest of the Heat’s roster combined for just 42 points on 14-of-49 (28.6 percent) shooting from the field on Saturday.
Adebayo was limited to 14 points on 6-of-14 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting at the free-throw line.
Gordon Hayward scored a team-high 21 points for the Hornets. LaMelo Ball contributed 19 points and 13 assists.
But rookie center Mark Williams may have been the Hornets’ most impactful player on Saturday, finishing with 18 points and 20 rebounds (seven offensive rebounds).
The Heat dropped both of its games in Charlotte this season and fell to just 6-7 this season against the bottom five teams in the Eastern Conference.
“We just had a really poor performance against Milwaukee and then tonight I didn’t feel like it was a poor performance,” Spoelstra said referring to Friday night’s 29-point loss to the Bucks. “I thought we did a lot of things right [against the Hornets], but then you have to make those plays at the end.
“They just made more plays than we did. I’m not trying to simplify it, but they did hit some big shots.”
After a scoreless Heat debut, Love found a better offensive rhythm in his second game with the team.
Love closed Saturday’s loss with 13 points on 4-of-11 shooting from the field and 3-of-9 shooting on threes and 13 rebounds in 26 minutes for his sixth double-double of the season and his first double-double since Jan. 2. This comes just one day after finishing his first game in a Heat uniform scoreless on 0-of-4 shooting from three-point range in Friday’s loss in Milwaukee.
Love, 34, appeared to find a flow while playing the final 4:58 of the second quarter on Saturday, recording 10 points and three rebounds during that stretch.
But Love was quiet in the second half, going scoreless on 0-of-4 shooting from three-point range in the final two quarters.
A bit of rust is to be expected from Love, who last appeared in a game on Jan. 24 before joining the Heat this week.
“For me, as of yesterday, I was told it had been a month since I played,” Love said Saturday. “So yesterday was, collectively, very ugly. But I think we’re all just kind of feeling each other out.”
The Heat’s new starting lineup opened its second straight game together and the results were again negative.
It was not a positive debut for the Heat’s new starting five in Friday’s blowout loss to the Bucks. With Love replacing Caleb Martin as the starting power forward, the Gabe Vincent-Herro-Butler-Love-Adebayo lineup was outscored by 11 points in 17 minutes together in that defeat.
This five-man unit didn’t do much better in its second game together, as the group was outscored by seven points in 15 minutes together in Saturday’s loss.
The Heat’s new starting lineup has only been together for two games, but it should be noted that the old starting lineup was actually among the Heat’s better combinations. In the 98 minutes that Martin has played alongside Vincent, Herro, Butler and Adebayo this season, the Heat has outscored opponents by 20 points per 100 possessions.
And when Kyle Lowry was starting, the Heat outscored opponents by 2.7 points per 100 possessions in the 293 minutes that Martin played alongside Lowry, Herro, Butler and Adebayo this season.
The Heat extended its rotation to 10 players for the second straight game, but Miami’s bench continues to struggle.
With Vincent, Herro, Butler, Love and Adebayo starting, the Heat again went with a five-man bench rotation of Victor Oladipo, Cody Zeller, Max Strus, Caleb Martin and Duncan Robinson.
The Heat has used this exact rotation in each of the two games following the All-Star break.
While a 10-man rotation sometimes showcases a team’s depth, it did the opposite for the Heat on Saturday.
The Heat’s bench was outscored 36-10 by the Hornets’ reserves.
Oladipo, Strus and Duncan Robinson combined to go scoreless on 0-of-9 shooting from the field and 0-of-8 shooting from three-point range.
The only two Heat reserves who scored in the loss were Zeller and Martin. Zeller finished with four points and three rebounds, and Martin finished with six points and three rebounds.
Zeller was also the only Heat reserve who posted a positive plus/minus on Saturday.
The Heat has lost the bench battle by a combined margin of 92-52 over the last two games.
This has been an unfortunate trend for Miami, which has the NBA’s second-lowest scoring bench this season at 26.9 points per game.
The four available Heat players who did not appear in Saturday’s game were Jamal Cain, Udonis Haslem, Haywood Highsmith and Orlando Robinson.
Orlando Robinson was made inactive for the second straight game, as the Heat looks to preserve his NBA availability. He’s eligible to be on the Heat’s active list for just four more games this regular season as part of his two-way deal before he’s forced to log the rest of his minutes this season in the G League.
The only three Heat players out because of injuries on Saturday were Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Kyle Lowry (left knee soreness) and Omer Yurtseven (left ankle surgery).
The Heat continues to lose ground in the playoff race and the play-in tournament is becoming a more realistic possibility.
With the New York Knicks defeating the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday night, the sixth-place Knicks extended their lead over the seventh-place Heat to 2.5 games in the East standings. The two teams are going in opposite directions, with the Heat on a four-game losing skid and the Knicks on a five-game winning streak.
Finishing with a top-six playoff seed is important because it would keep the Heat out of the dreaded play-in tournament. The play-in tournament, which is done during the week-long window between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs, features the seventh through 10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.
If the Heat is going to avoid the play-in tournament after finishing last season as the East’s top playoff seed, it will need to turn things around quickly. Miami has just 21 regular-season games left to play.
This story was originally published February 25, 2023 at 9:38 PM.
