Defense has been catalyst behind many Heat wins, but not lately. Also, no excuses for Heat
Amid the Jimmy Butler drama, there’s plenty of uncertainty surrounding the Miami Heat. But the Heat does know one thing: playing quality defense and making it a low-scoring game is its pathway to consistent success.
Unfortunately for the Heat, its defense hasn’t been good enough lately. As a result, the Heat dropped its third straight game in a 133-113 blowout loss to the Denver Nuggets on Friday night at Kaseya Center.
“I know what I saw out there from a defensive standpoint,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said following Friday’s defeat. “It was not good enough and that’s three straight games now. We found our identity of how we can win games. Then in three games, we haven’t been able to put that together and commit to that side of the floor, and we’ve paid the price.”
Friday’s game was especially rough, as the Heat allowed 134.3 points per 100 possessions for its worst single-game defensive rating of the season. The Nuggets scored at least 30 points in each of the four quarters, shooting 54.3 percent from the field and 16 of 33 (48.5 percent) from three-point range while committing only six turnovers.
Led by three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, 54 of the Nuggets’ 92 shots on Friday were either open (closest defender four to six feet away) or wide open (closest defender more than six feet away), according to NBA tracking stats. Jokic recorded 24 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists for his 17th triple-double of the season.
“They scored 30 in every single quarter,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said, with the homestand continuing on Sunday against the San Antonio Spurs (3 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun). “That’s not going to cut it at all.”
How important has the Heat’s defense been to its success?
The Heat is 12-0 this season when holding its opponent to 100 points or less, but just 8-20 when its opponent scores more than 100 points. The Heat entered Saturday with the NBA’s eighth-worst winning percentage (.286) when its opponent scores over 100 points.
“It gets to a point at this point of the season, you understand what your identity is,” Spoelstra said earlier this month. “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.”
That’s because the Heat’s offense isn’t good enough to consistently keep up with teams in high-scoring games. After finishing with a bottom-10 offensive rating in each of the previous two seasons, the Heat entered Saturday with the NBA’s 16th-ranked offensive rating this season.
Before this current three-game skid, the Heat held the league’s 10th-ranked defensive rating for the season. But after losing three straight games, the Heat entered Saturday with the 12th-ranked defensive rating.
“It really has to start on the defensive side of the floor for us,” Spoelstra said.
NO EXCUSES
After taking a red-eye flight from Los Angeles at the end of its long six-game trip, the Heat landed in Miami at around 7 a.m. on Thursday before opening its homestand with a 20-point loss to the Nuggets on Friday.
But the Heat didn’t want to use travel as an excuse for what happened against the Nuggets.
“I think by tipoff, I think we all felt fine,” Spoelstra said following Friday’s defeat. “If you asked us to play a game last night [Thursday] after the red-eye, it probably would have felt a little bit different. But today, we were looking forward to it. I didn’t feel that was a factor in tonight’s game at all. That was the Denver Nuggets that did this to us.”
The Nuggets have actually done this to the Heat a lot lately.
The Heat has dropped 19 of its last 22 games against the Nuggets, including the 2023 NBA Finals. The last time the Heat defeated the Nuggets in Miami was nearly seven years ago, with a double-overtime home win over the Nuggets on March 19, 2018.
With the Nuggets also defeating the Heat in Denver on Nov. 8 earlier this season, the Nuggets have now swept their two-game regular-season series against the Heat in five straight seasons.
“We’ll figure it out at some point,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said of the Heat’s issues against the Nuggets.
INJURY REPORT
The Heat ruled out Josh Richardson (right heel inflammation), Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery) and Isaiah Stevens (G League) for Sunday’s game against the Spurs.
Josh Christopher, who has been playing in the G League, is questionable to rejoin the Heat for Sunday’s contest.
The rest of the Heat’s roster is expected to be available against the Spurs.
This story was originally published January 18, 2025 at 12:55 PM.
