Without Butler, Heat offense struggles in blowout home loss to Warriors. Takeaways and details
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 113-92 loss to the Golden State Warriors (37-34) on Tuesday night at Kaseya Center to fall to 1-2 on its four-game homestand. The Heat (39-33) closes the homestand on Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers:
The short-handed Heat didn’t have enough in the second half, leading to its seventh loss in the past 11 games.
The Heat played another game without a chunk of its rotation, missing rotation regulars Jimmy Butler (non-COVID illness), Tyler Herro (right foot medial tendintis), Kevin Love (bruised right heel) and Duncan Robinson (left facet syndrome) against the Warriors. The Heat also remained without Josh Richardson, who is out for the season after surgery on his right shoulder.
The injury-depleted Heat was competitive to start the game during a first half that included eight lead changes and six ties. The Heat even entered halftime with a narrow 55-53 lead.
But the Warriors took control of the game with a dominant third quarter, beginning the period on a 30-15 run to turn a two-point deficit into a 13-point lead.
The Warriors ended up outscoring the Heat 32-20 in the third quarter, taking a 10-point lead into the fourth.
The Heat’s offense hit a rough patch in the third quarter, shooting just 7 of 23 (30.4 percent) from the field and 1 of 8 (12.5 percent) from three-point range in the period.
Those shooting struggles continued in the fourth quarter, as the Heat totaled just 17 points on 6-of-22 (27.3 percent) shooting from the field and 0-of-8 shooting on threes in the final period. The Warriors pulled ahead by as many as 22 points in the final minutes.
After scoring 55 points in the first half, the Heat scored just 37 points on 13-of-45 (28.9 percent) shooting from the field and 1-of-16 (6.2 percent) shooting from behind the arc in the second half.
“I don’t think we executed with intention,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the Heat’s low-scoring second half. “We missed some open shots and then some of the decision making was not to our best standards. And then their defense was able to force some deflections, steals, long rebounds, blocks, that kind of thing that kind of got them going the other direction.”
While missing some of its top scorers in Butler, Herro and Robinson, the Heat finished the loss with just 92 points on 40.2 percent shooting from the field and 8-of-33 (24.2 percent) shooting from three-point range.
The Heat scored at a pace of just 98.9 points per 100 possessions in Tuesday’s loss, falling to 1-10 this season when finishing with an offensive rating under 100 points per 100 possessions.
Bam Adebayo led the Heat with 24 points, nine rebounds, five assists, one steal and one block. But his points didn’t come easy, as he finished 10 of 21 from the field.
Terry Rozier added 15 points, but needed 18 shots to do it. He shot 7 of 18 from the field and 1 of 6 on threes.
Caleb Martin also had trouble making shots, finishing with 10 points on 4-of-12 shooting from the field and 0-of-4 shooting on threes. Martin, who has shot 2 of 14 from behind the arc in the last three games, spent time after Tuesday’s loss putting up shots on the Heat’s practice court.
For the Warriors, Klay Thompson closed with a game-high 28 points on 6-of-14 shooting from deep.
Stephen Curry was relatively quiet for his All-NBA standards, finishing with 17 points on 3-of-10 shooting from three-point range for Golden State. But he scored 10 points and dished out four assists in the second half.
The Heat fell to 18-17 at home, which is tied for the fewest home wins among the top 10 teams in the Eastern Conference.
Meanwhile, Tuesday’s win helped the Warriors take a stronger hold on 10th place in the Western Conference as they fight to make the NBA’s play-in tournament.
“You have to credit Golden State,” Spoelstra said. “They knew what this game was about, we knew what it was about. These are must-wins for both teams going down the stretch and they were able to get the job done tonight.”
The Heat remains in seventh place in the East, but fell further behind sixth place.
With the sixth-place Indiana Pacers (41-32) and eighth-place Philadelphia 76ers (39-33) idle on Tuesday, the Heat lost some ground on both teams in the East standings.
After Tuesday’s loss to the Warriors, the No. 7 Heat fell 1.5 games behind the No. 6 Pacers and is now only ahead of the No. 8 76ers only by virtue of the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The Heat and 76ers hold the same record at 39-33, but the Heat is in seventh place and the 76ers are in eighth place because Miami leads the regular-season series over Philadelphia 2-1. There’s one regular-season matchup between the two teams remaining on April 4 in Miami.
The Heat needs to finish with a top-six seed in the East to avoid the play-in tourney, which features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.
There are 10 games left on the Heat’s regular-season schedule.
With so many again unavailable, the Heat turned to another new starting lineup.
The Heat opened Tuesday’s game with a lineup of Rozier, Patty Mills, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Nikola Jovic and Adebayo.
It marked the Heat’s 35th different starting lineup of the season, which is a franchise record. The previous Heat record for most different starting units used in a season was 31 in the 2014-15 season.
Only the struggling Memphis Grizzlies and Portland Trail Blazers have used more different starting lineups than the Heat this season.
While Mills made his fourth straight start in the spot that either Herro or Robinson usually occupy in the starting lineup, Jaquez started in place of Butler on Tuesday.
Jaquez, who made the 20th start of his rookie season, finished Tuesday’s loss with 12 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field and 1-of-4 shooting on threes, two rebounds and one assist.
Off the Heat’s bench, forward Haywood Highsmith turned in one of his best performances of the season.
Highmsith finished Tuesday’s loss with 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the field and 3-of-3 shooting on threes, six rebounds, two assists and two steals in 30 minutes. He scored 13 of his 15 points in the first half.
With Highsmith also scoring 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field and 4-of-4 shooting from three-point range in Sunday’s win over the Cavaliers, he has totaled an impressive 33 points on 13-of-23 shooting from the field and 7-of-7 shooting on threes in the last two games.
Highsmith has also stood out on the defensive end, especially at the top of the Heat’s press-zone scheme. His length and on-ball pressure bothered the Warriors throughout the night.
Highsmith even pressured Warriors veteran guard Chris Paul into a back-court turnover, stealing the ball from Paul and turning it into an easy layup for himself late in the first half.
“I think he’s just playing to his strengths and he’s inspiring right now,” Spoelstra said of Highsmith. “His defensive activity in the press in the first half was so inspiring. I mentioned it to the guys at halftime. It’s like, if that’s not inspiring you, I don’t know what can. He was basically a one-man press creating turnovers.”
While Highsmith’s playing time has been inconsistent lately, his three-and-D skill set makes him an intriguing rotation option even when the Heat’s roster is healthier. He’s now shooting 39 percent on 2.8 three-point attempts per game this season while also serving as one of the Heat’s top perimeter defenders.
Adebayo’s surprising late-season three-point surge continues.
On his way to totaling 24 points on Tuesday, Adebayo shot 1 of 3 from three-point range.
Adebayo’s only three-point make of the game came from above the break off an assist from Martin with 1:22 left in the first quarter. Trailing the play, Adebayo caught the pass from Martin and put up the shot early in the possession with the Warriors giving him space to take it.
It marked the seventh straight game that Adebayo has attempted a three-pointer and he has made at least one three-pointer in six of those games.
Overall, Adebayo is just 8 of 25 (32 percent) from three-point range this season and 16 of 87 (18.4 percent) from behind the arc during his NBA career.
But over the last seven games, Adebayo is 7 of 11 (63.6 percent) from deep after starting the season just 1 of 14 (7.1 percent) on threes.
While it’s still just about one three-point attempt per game during this seven-game stretch, Adebayo is starting to show he’ll take the shot if teams continue to leave him open. He’s also proving he has the ability to make the shot.
It’s worth noting that Adebayo was hit in the head in the second quarter and was slow to get up, but he was able to finish Tuesday’s game without an issue.
“I had to make sure I was alright. So that’s why I stayed down,” Adebayo said. “I had to make sure nothing was seriously wrong because, you know, you’ve seen a lot of guys get hit in the head and it could be a concussion or neck strain. For me, it was just really depending on if I could get up. Then, obviously, you got that whisper in the back of your ear. For me, it was my mom to tell me to get up. So I shook it off.”
This story was originally published March 26, 2024 at 10:00 PM.
