Takeaways and details from Heat’s comeback win over Cavs to close important homestand at 3-3
This season-long six-game homestand was billed as a season-defining stretch for Miami Heat. It didn’t go great, but it ended on a positive note.
The Heat (36-32) rallied from a 14-point third-quarter deficit to earn a 119-115 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers (42-27) on Friday night at Miami-Dade Arena to avoid a losing homestand. Miami closed the important homestand at 3-3 as it continues to try to avoid the play-in tournament.
“You got to embrace the grind,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’re fighting for our competitive lives right now. Is this the exact position we want to be in? No. But you do have to embrace the competition. When you’re dreaming about things in the middle of the summer, this is what you want. You want games with incredible pressure and context.”
The Heat trailed by 14 points with 3:12 left in the third quarter, but went on a big 25-7 run to pull ahead by four points just 6:45 later with 8:37 remaining in the fourth quarter.
The Heat led the rest of the way behind excellent play on both ends of the court. Miami’s lead grew to as many as seven points.
But it still came down to the final seconds, as it often does for the Heat.
After the Heat pulled ahead by seven points, the Cavaliers scored six unanswered points to cut the deficit to just one point with 38.7 seconds to play.
But Jimmy Butler delivered in another clutch moment for the Heat, hitting a 19-foot midrange jumper to push the lead back up to three with 18 seconds remaining.
Donovan Mitchell drew a foul on the Cavaliers’ next possession, making both free throws to again trim the deficit to one point with 10.3 seconds left.
The Cavaliers then intentionally fouled Heat forward Caleb Martin to preserve the clock. Martin made both free throws to put the Heat ahead by three points with 8.9 seconds to play.
Instead of allowing the Cavaliers to go for the tie, the Heat took the foul on the next possession to put Mitchell on the line for two free throws with 5.6 seconds to play. Mitchell made the first one and intentionally missed the second one, but the Heat grabbed the defensive rebound to seal the victory.
The Heat outscored the Cavaliers 69-56 in the second half to complete the comeback.
Butler led the Heat with a team-high 33 points on 12-of-16 shooting from the field, to go with five rebounds and three assists in 35 minutes. He scored 23 points in the second half.
Heat guard Tyler Herro contributed 25 points on 8-of-15 shooting from the field and 5-of-7 shooting from three-point range, nine rebounds and four assists. Heat center Bam Adebayo added 19 points, six rebounds and four assists.
The Cavaliers were led by Mitchell, who closed with a game-high 42 points on 15-of-30 shooting from the field and 8-of-15 shooting on threes.
The Heat is right back at it on Saturday against the Magic in Orlando (7 p.m., Bally Sports Sun) to complete the 11th of its 14 back-to-backs this season.
“At this point, all these games are playoff games for us,” Herro said. “So just got to continue to lock in, get wins and continue to stack good days.”
Five takeaways from the Heat’s win over the Cavaliers on Friday:
The Heat has struggled to make threes all season, but it got hot in the second half on the way to completing the comeback.
It looked like it was going to be another rough shooting night for the Heat after finishing the first half just 3 of 10 (30 percent) from beyond the arc.
The Heat knew it needed to not only make more threes, but also take more threes in the second half to have a chance to win. Miami did both, shooting 11 of 19 (57.9 percent) on threes in the final two quarters.
The Heat’s 11 threes in Friday’s second half is tied for the second-most it has made in any half this season.
Herro (5 of 5) and Max Strus (4 of 6) combined to make nine of the Heat’s 11 second-half threes.
“That’s when we’re at our best,” Strus said when asked about Miami’s three-point shooting in the second half. “Ball movement, find the open guy, sharing the ball and just hitting open shots. It’s easy to play the game right way. When we do that, we’re pretty good.”
Friday was one of the rare times this season that the Heat has won a game behind three-point shooting. Miami entered with the NBA’s third-worst team three-point percentage this season at 33.6 percent.
But it wasn’t just threes that went in for the Heat. Miami also shot an efficient 16 of 30 (53.3 percent) from midrange on Friday.
It marked the first game this season that the Heat has shot better than 50 percent from midrange and better than 40 percent from three-point range in.
That type of shot-making was needed against the Cavaliers’ top-ranked defense.
The Heat did something it almost never does late in Friday’s win.
With the Cavaliers in possession of the ball with no timeouts and the Heat ahead by three points, Butler intentionally fouled Mitchell as he crossed halfcourt with 5.6 seconds to play.
Instead of allowing the Cavaliers to attempt a game-tying three, the Heat chose to give Mitchell two free throws.
Mitchell made the first throw to cut the deficit to two points, but intentionally missed the second free throw in hopes that he or one of his teammates would come away with the offensive rebound to give the Cavaliers an opportunity to either tie or win the game. But after the ball bounced off the backboard and rim, Butler grabbed the defensive rebound to end the possession with 4.2 seconds remaining and clinch the win.
“We typically don’t do this,” Spoelstra said of the strategy to foul Mitchell in that spot.
At least two other times this season, the Heat opted against taking the foul in that same situation.
In a Dec. 2 overtime win over the Celtics in Boston, the Heat was ahead by three points with 5.1 seconds left in regulation. Instead of intentionally fouling, the Heat allowed Jaylen Brown to rise up and hit a 30-foot three-pointer with 2.3 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to send the game to overtime.
In a Jan. 31 win over the Cavaliers in Cleveland, the Heat was ahead by three points with 7.3 seconds to play. Instead of intentionally fouling, the Heat allowed Mitchell to dribble the length of the court and go up for what would have been a game-tying three that bounced off the front of the rim as the final buzzer sounded.
“That was Jimmy talking about it after the Boston game and we were all talking about it after the Cleveland game,” Spoelstra said of the process that led to the shift in late-game strategy on Friday. “Look, it’s a philosophical thing. But when a team doesn’t have a timeout and then you have the smartest, quickest player making those decisions, you feel comfortable with it and I felt fully comfortable with Jimmy making that decision and I thought he just timed it right and made a really smart play.
“Also, you have to have the rebounding to be able to do it. I’ve seen so many of those plays, as well. I think Donovan Mitchell missed that free throw about as perfectly as you possibly could. They usually just air ball or go off the rim or only bank shot. He did it perfectly and it popped up. But Kevin got a great block out against the biggest player on the floor and Jimmy swooped in for the rebound.”
The Heat was again without point guard Kyle Lowry, but his return appears to be imminent.
Left knee soreness forced Lowry to miss his 15th straight game on Friday. He has not played in a game since Feb. 2 and was at the center of trade speculation ahead of the Feb. 9 trade deadline.
But Lowry will travel with the team to Orlando for Saturday’s game. The hope is that he will be able to make his return against the Magic.
Gabe Vincent, who made his 15th consecutive start in Lowry’s place, finished Friday’s win with six points on 2-of-7 shooting from the field, one rebound and three assists in 22 minutes. It remains to be seen if Lowry will resume being the Heat’s starting point guard when he returns, or whether Spoelstra continues starting Vincent.
The Heat has posted a 7-8 record during this 15-game stretch without Lowry, who turns 37 on March 25.
Along with missing Lowry, the Heat was without rookie forward Nikola Jovic (G League assignment) and three-point shooting forward Duncan Robinson (illness) on Friday.
When asked how the Heat will handle the roster on the back end of the late-season back-to-back set on Saturday in Orlando, Spoelstra said prior to Friday’s game: “I’ll get to tomorrow when we get to tomorrow. ... I feel much better with where are physically than where we were six weeks ago.”
Meanwhile, the Cavaliers were without starting guard Darius Garland on Friday because of a right quadriceps contusion.
The Heat found a way to slow Mitchell in the second half.
Mitchell was hot in the first half, scoring 25 points on 9-of-12 shooting from the field and 6-of-8 shooting from three-point range in the first two quarters.
In the second half, Mitchell’s points did not come as easy. He totaled 17 points on an inefficient 6-of-18 shooting from the field and 2-of-7 shooting on threes in the final two quarters.
Mitchell still became only the fifth player to score more than 40 points against the Heat this season, joining Boston’s Jayson Tatum, Brooklyn’s Mikal Bridges, Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton and New York’s Julius Randle.
Mitchell finished with 42 points on Friday.
The Heat still has some work to do to avoid the play-in tournament.
With the New York Knicks idle and the Brooklyn Nets defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves in overtime on Friday, the seventh-place Heat is three games behind the fifth-place Knicks and 2.5 games behind the sixth-place Nets with only 14 regular-season games left to play.
The tiebreaker with the Knicks is still up for grabs, but the Nets have already clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Heat. That means Miami is essentially 3.5 games behind Brooklyn since the Heat doesn’t hold the tiebreaker edge.
To escape having to qualify for the play-in tournament, the Heat needs to finish as a top-six playoff seed in the East.
With the Atlanta Hawks defeating the Washington Wizards on Friday, the seventh-place Heat is 1.5 games ahead of the eighth-place Hawks. Miami holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Atlanta.
This story was originally published March 10, 2023 at 10:48 PM.
