No Adebayo, no Butler, not enough offense for Heat in loss to Clippers. Takeaways and details
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 109-98 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers (21-17) on Monday night at Intuit Dome to snap its three-game winning streak and drop to 3-2 on its six-game West Coast trip. The Heat (20-18) now remains in Los Angeles to close the trip on Wednesday against the Lakers:
Without Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler, the Heat simply didn’t have enough offense to win.
While totaling 35 points on 12-of-23 (52.2 percent) shooting from the field and 7-of-15 (46.7 percent) from three-point range in Monday’s first quarter, the Heat found itself ahead by as many as 13 points in the opening period.
But it was downhill from there for the short-handed Heat, as it struggled to generate quality offense with Adebayo unavailable because of a lower back contusion and Butler serving the sixth game of his team-issued seven-game suspension.
With the Heat totaling just 33 points on 11-of-40 (27.5 percent) shooting from the field and 5-of-24 (20.8 percent) on threes over the second and third quarters, what was a 13-point lead for the Heat late in the first quarter and then a five-point halftime lead for the Heat became an 11-point Clippers lead at the end of the third period.
The Clippers outscored the Heat by a total score of 51-33 in the second and third quarters.
The Clippers never looked back, as their lead grew to as large as 19 points in the fourth period.
“You have to credit them,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the Clippers’ defense. “They stepped up their pressure. That’s what they do. I mean, there were several possessions there at the end of the third, beginning of the fourth, where we couldn’t even get into offense.”
The Clippers took advantage of the Adebayo-less Heat defense, scoring 60 paint points with the help of 21-of-26 (80.8 percent) shooting at the rim. Los Angeles finished with a big 60-28 edge in the paint.
While Kawhi Leonard was quiet for the Clippers with just six points, the trio of James Harden, Normal Powell and Ivica Zubac combined to score 76 points for Los Angeles.
Powell finished with a team-high 29 points on 12-of-17 shooting from the field and 5-of-8 shooting on threes.
Harden added 26 points, five rebounds and 11 assists.
Zubac recorded 21 points and 20 rebounds.
For the Heat, Tyler Herro was the catalyst behind much of the Heat’s offensive production on Monday with Adebayo and Butler out.
Herro finished with a game-high 32 points on 9-of-20 shooting from the field, 4-of-13 shooting on threes and 10-of-12 shooting from the foul line, 11 rebounds and seven assists.
The problem is no other Heat player hit the 20-point mark on Monday against a Clippers defense that entered the game with the NBA’s fourth-best defensive rating this season.
The Heat shot just 38.8 percent from the field and 17 of 52 (32.7 percent) from three-point range while committing 16 turnovers in the loss. The Clippers outscored the Heat 27-12 in points off turnovers.
Miami is now 4-4 this season when scoring fewer than 100 points.
“Obviously, the loss wasn’t what we wanted,” Herro said. “I feel like the first half was decent. Then in the second half, some things got away from us with their pressure. But we’ll be alright.”
The Heat scored at a pace of 98 points per 100 possessions in Monday’s loss for its fifth-worst single-game defensive rating of the season.
“That’s probably the most active defense we’ve played on this road trip, for sure,” Spoelstra said, continuing to compliment the Clippers’ defense. “We got to learn those lessons and move on.”
The Heat expected Adebayo to play against the Clippers at the start of the day, but he ended up missing his first game of the season.
After initially being listed as available, Adebayo was downgraded to questionable on Monday afternoon before eventually being ruled out for the contest just a few hours before tipoff because of a lower back contusion.
“He’s been dealing with it for a few days,” Spoelstra said when asked about Adebayo’s injury before Monday’s game. “He’s getting a lot of treatment and it kind of seized up on him this morning. But we’ll treat him day to day and we’ll reevaluate him.”
Adebayo suffered the injury when he took a hard fall on his back after trying to catch an errant pass from Heat teammate Nikola Jovic during Saturday’s win over the Portland Trail Blazers. Adebayo was slow to get up, but he stayed in the game and finished the contest to log 30 minutes in the victory.
Whether Adebayo is able to play in the final game of the Heat’s trip on Wednesday against the Lakers is up in the air. The Heat will release its injury report for that contest on Tuesday by 8:30 p.m.
Along with missing Adebayo, the Heat was also without Butler (team suspension), Josh Richardson (right heel inflammation) and Dru Smith (Achilles surgery) against the Clippers. Richardson was on the trip with the Heat, but he returned to Miami to undergo an MRI on his lingering heel injury.
The Clippers had their full rotation available, with no injuries to report for Monday’s contest.
Without Adebayo for the first time this season, the Heat opted to start veteran Kevin Love at center instead of rookie Kel’el Ware.
The Heat opened Monday’s game with a lineup of Terry Rozier, Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Haywood Highsmith and Love. It marked the Heat’s eighth different starting group through its first 38 games this season.
Love has fallen out of the Heat’s rotation after beginning the season as the backup center, entering Monday’s contest with just one appearance in the previous 12 games.
But Love made his sixth start of the season on Monday and his first start of the season without Adebayo by his side.
Love began the game fast, totaling nine points on 3-of-5 shooting from three-point range during the first seven minutes of the first quarter.
But Love didn’t score again for the rest of the night, finishing the loss with nine points and three rebounds in 15 minutes. After Love was subbed out with 7:48 left in the third quarter, he didn’t re-enter the game as Spoelstra played Ware at center the rest of the way.
“K-Love is super important for this team,” Spoelstra said after Monday’s loss.
Ware has taken over for Love as the Heat’s backup center in recent weeks and the Heat opted to keep him in that role Monday instead of moving him into Adebayo’s spot in the starting lineup.
While some members of the Heat’s young core were underwhelming Monday, Ware thrived.
Jaquez, who was drafted by the Heat in the first round of the 2023 NBA draft, finished the loss with 10 points, two rebounds, five assists and five turnovers.
Jovic, who was drafted by the Heat in the first round of the 2022 NBA Draft, closed with five points on 1-of-10 shooting from the field and 1-of-7 shooting on threes. He also committed three turnovers.
But Ware, who was selected by the Heat in the first round of the 2023 NBA Draft, was one of Miami’s best players on Monday. The 20-year-old big man finished the loss with 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field and 3-of-3 shooting on threes while grabbing a season-high 13 rebounds and blocking one shot in 33 minutes off the Heat’s bench.
Most of Ware’s production came in the fourth quarter, as he totaled 13 points and six rebounds in the final period.
“Toward the end, I was like we got to have some type of spark,” Ware said. “So i just started putting up shots.”
The only real blemish on Ware’s statline on Monday was his negative plus/minus of minus 14.
Ware has now logged double-digit minutes in 13 straight games after opening his rookie season out of the Heat’s rotation.
“Kel’el has been playing really well,” Spoelstra said. “And he had a very good game tonight. ... He’s making progress. It seems to be every day that he’s learning something new.”
Both teams took the court on Monday in Los Angeles with heavy hearts.
There were questions whether Monday’s game between the Heat and Clippers would even be played amid the devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
But the NBA decided to move forward with Monday’s games in Los Angeles after postponing two Lakers home games and one Clippers home last week because of the fires.
As the Heat and Clippers faced off at Intuit Dome, the Lakers hosted the San Antonio Spurs at Crypto.com Arena on Monday night for the NBA’s first games in Los Angeles since the fires started early last week.
“We were following it and it looked terrifying,” Spoelstra said before Monday’s game. “But we understand our responsibility. We want to do whatever we can in this profession. We wanted to come here with great empathy and grace. And if our roles are to provide an inspiration, then that’s our role. But while we’re doing that, we’re thinking about all the devastation and all the people that are dealing with it.”
A red flag warning is still in place for parts of Southern California, with wind gusts of up to 70 mph forecast between 4 a.m. Tuesday and noon Wednesday. The Weather Service on Monday widened the area facing a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning in terms of wildfire risk in the coming days.
Following Monday’s loss, the Heat remains in Los Angeles to take on the Lakers on Wednesday before returning to Miami.
This story was originally published January 14, 2025 at 12:51 AM.
