As Butler situation looms, Heat hopes Tuesday’s win vs. Warriors proves to be ‘breakthrough’
The Miami Heat entered Tuesday’s game against the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco in search of a breakthrough moment. Hours later, the Heat ended the night by screaming “breakthrough” to break its postgame huddle in the visitor’s locker room at Chase Center.
The Heat (18-17) hopes Tuesday night’s 114-98 bounce-back road win over the Warriors represents a breakthrough after blowing a 17-point fourth-quarter lead just 24 hours before in a painful double-overtime loss to the Kings in Sacramento on Monday.
“It’s always good when you go through a brutal game like that and you get a bounce-back win,” Heat center and captain Bam Adebayo said following Tuesday’s victory over the Warriors. “Those are the ones that you really remember. Nobody really remembers the ones where you blow somebody out. But you remember the ones where you had to really fight for the win, 48 minutes.”
While a fourth-quarter collapse cost the Heat against the Kings, it staved off the Warriors’ comeback attempt Tuesday to snap its three-game losing skid and improve to 1-1 on its six-game West Coast trip.
After the Heat pulled ahead by 14 points 6:58 left in the third quarter, the Warriors made a run to cut the deficit to just one point with 9:34 remaining in the fourth quarter. But the Heat responded with a 9-0 run to push its lead back up to 10 less than two minutes later on its way to the 16-point win.
“These are opportunities, when you have a real tough game last night and a quick turnaround, you can rally around each other or you can get overwhelmed and feel sorry for yourselves,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, with the trip continuing Thursday against the Utah Jazz at Delta Center (9 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun). “We have a group that has great competitive character. And we’re working to get things right and get to a different level. I think all of these experiences are really important for us.
“Even last night, as painful as that was, there were a lot of teaching points that in tonight’s game we were better in those areas.”
The Heat needed to overcome Monday’s deflating double-overtime defeat and the noise surrounding the Jimmy Butler situation. With Butler back in Miami serving his team-issued seven-game suspension following last week’s drama, Miami was 0-2 since the start of the suspension before defeating the Warriors.
The Heat is listening to trade offers for Butler after he publicly expressed his displeasure with being on Miami’s roster. But the Heat has not yet been presented with a trade offer for Butler that is being strongly considered, with his reintegration into the team becoming a more realistic possibility as each day passes.
According to a league source, Butler will be expected to rejoin the Heat and play in games if he’s still on the roster at the end of his team-issued seven-game suspension. As of now, the Heat is not interested in having Butler remain away from the team while paying him the remainder of his $48.8 million salary for this season after his suspension is over.
Butler’s suspension runs through the end of the Heat’s current West Coast trip, and he will be eligible to come back when the Heat returns to Miami to host the Denver Nuggets on Jan. 17.
“You have to have competitive character,” Spoelstra again emphasized after Tuesday’s win in San Francisco. “This group has that and this group is extremely ambitious. We’ve been frustrated, angry, all the different emotions of being where we are. But it’s not for a lack of want, it’s not for a lack of not having competitive character. This group loves to compete, loves to get challenged, loves to take on the things that this league presents, and we’re making strides.”
Butler’s absence has created an opportunity for some of the Heat’s younger players, such as Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic, to take on bigger roles.
Jaquez, the Heat’s first-round pick in the 2023 Draft, has started in Butler’s place in each of the last two games. Jaquez, 23, recorded the first triple-double of his NBA career in Monday’s loss to the Kings before finishing Tuesday’s win against the Warriors with 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field and five rebounds.
Jovic, the Heat’s first-round pick in the 2022 Draft, contributed a team-high and season-high 20 points to go with six rebounds, four assists and one steal in Tuesday’s victory over the Warriors. Jovic, 21, also logged a season-high 34 minutes in the win.
“We’re excited about our young core,” Spoelstra said. “They all bring something a little bit different, and now we have to put it together, the whole thing together, to win games.”
The fact is the Heat should probably have a few more wins than it does at this point of the season.
Not only is the Heat an underwhelming 7-12 in clutch games (one that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter) this season, but the Heat is also 2-6 in games decided by three points or less. Miami’s six losses by three points or less is tied with the Toronto Raptors and Kings for the most in the NBA this season.
“Sometimes, unfortunately, you have to go through some pain in this league to learn how to win games,” Spoelstra said. “We’ve had some moving parts, and I’m not saying that as an excuse. We’re figuring it out. We’ve had five of these really close games with this locker room. We had a really tough loss in Detroit. We had a really tough one obviously in Orlando, a tough one last night [in Sacramento]. And we’ve had two great games where we responded, the second Orlando game and then in Houston. These are great learning points for our group.”
The Heat is learning that defense has to be at the center of its winning formula, as three of its past five wins have come with its opponent scoring fewer than 100 points. After limiting the Warriors to 98 points on Tuesday, the Heat improved to 9-0 this season when holding its opponent under 100 points.
“At this point of the season, you understand what your identity is,” Spoelstra said. “If we want to win games, we have to defend, we have to do tough things, we have to do the things that aren’t necessarily always fun or glamorous. Get into the mud of it and guys are starting to buy into that.”
The Heat is far from perfect— entering Wednesday in sixth place in the Eastern Conference — and the Butler situation continues to loom over the team. But on Tuesday, the Heat enjoyed what it hopes turns out to be a breakthrough moment.
“It was all about the meeting we had this morning,” Jovic said after Tuesday’s bounce-back win over the Warriors. “Everything we talked about is how can we inspire each other. What the starting five did last night in two overtimes, played a lot of minutes, that kind of stuff has got to inspire other guys. Kevin Love was the one who was loud in that meeting and who wanted us to be better. That’s what we did today.”
INJURY REPORT
The Heat ruled out Butler (team suspension), Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery) and Isaiah Stevens (G League) for Thursday’s game against the Jazz.
Josh Richardson (right heel inflammation) and Love (personal reasons) are listed as doubtful.
This story was originally published January 8, 2025 at 12:25 PM.
