Miami Heat rides big fourth quarter to beat Dallas Mavericks. Details and takeaways.
This time, there was no late collapse, no untimely unraveling at the end.
The Heat blew another double-digit lead on Friday, but on this night, Miami had the entire fourth quarter to make up for it, and did just that in a 126-118 victory over Dallas at AmericanAirlines Arena.
Down by five after three quarters after frittering away a 14-point lead, the Heat began the fourth on a 13-0 run, on threes by Kelly Olynyk, Duncan Robinson and Jae Crowder, two free throws by Goran Dragic and a dunk by Andre Iguodala off a great pass by Robinson.
Those were the five who spearheaded that run.
“They gave us a tremendous boost,” Erik Spoelstra said. “That group with the zone defense was effective.”
When that stampede was over, Miami has turned a 93-88 deficit into a 101-93 lead.
This was a refreshing change for a Heat team that had been outscored in five consecutive fourth quarters.
“I liked seeing that fourth quarter, just well managed,” Spoelstra said. “As Pat [Riley] used to say, game can be broken into skirmishes, and there were skirmishes back and fourth. And they won a key one at the end of the third quarter. I was encouraged how we responded to that. We had to gut something out against a really good team.”
In Monday’s overtime loss at Cleveland, the Heat led 98-80 after three. In Wednesday’s loss to Minnesota, Miami led by 12 with 4:22 left.
On Friday, the Heat outscored Dallas by 38-25 in the fourth.
Jimmy Butler played very well, with 26 points, five rebounds and three assists.
Robinson scored 24 and hit six more three-pointers, giving him 211 for the season. He continues to close in on Wayne Ellington’s single season franchise record of 227.
Robinson hit two threes during that 14-3 spurt to start the fourth and also hit a driving layup on a nifty cut to the basket, finishing 8 for 11 from the field.
Kendrick Nunn continued a post All Star break revival with 16 points. He entered having averaged 20.8 points on 54 percent shooting since the break.
Bam Adebayo chipped in 14 points and 11 rebounds. Down by eight, Dallas tried Hack-a-Bam with 2:22 left in the fourth but Adebayo hit both free throws.
Olynyk gave the Heat a big lift off the bench, with 13 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds in just 19 minutes. Dragic had 16, and Crowder hit two big threes in the fourth.
The Heat shot 17 for 35 on threes. Also key: Miami committed just 11 turnovers.
The Heat did good work on Luka Doncic, who entered sixth in the league in scoring at 28.7 points per game but managed just eight in the first half, four in the fourth quarter and 23 for the game.
Miami survived a career-high 37 points from Seth Curry, with hit six threes in the second half.
Continuing to hold the fourth spot in the conference, the Heat (37-22) moved one-half game ahead of No. 5 Philadelphia and two games ahead of No. 6 Indiana. Miami plays host to Brooklyn on Saturday night in the third game of a five-game homestand.
Five takeaways from Friday’s game:
▪ The Heat’s max player came out aggressively, and played splendidly.
Two days after saying he needs to do more to help his team win, Butler drove to basket repeatedly early on and scored 9 of the Heat’s first 18 points en route to 14 in the first half.
“Jimmy set the tone from the beginning of the game,” Spoelstra said. “It was early assertiveness.”
Butler, who entered averaging 20.5 per game, topped that total by late in the third quarter, when he scored to stop an 8-0 Mavericks run.
He went to the fourth quarter with 21 points and added five in the fourth.
“He knows there are a lot of ups and downs,” Spoelstra said. “The thing you have to like is he is willing to take responsibility. And that’s what the great players do in this league.
“He’s willing to put himself out there. You can’t be a clutch player if you are afraid what people are going to say or be afraid to fail. He is willing to have the courage to put himself out there and make a play for the team. He was really good on both ends of the court.”
Adebayo said this is the type of aggressiveness he wants to see from Butler the rest of the season.
“That is the Jimmy Butler I need,” Adebayo said “....That is the one I want to have every night. He needs to be like that the rest of the season if we are even thinking of contending for a title.”
▪ The Heat continues to be victimized repeatedly from three-point range.
For the first 3 ½ months of the season, the Heat held opponents to the lowest three-point shooting percentage in the league.
That was bound to even up at some point, but the threes relinquished have been particularly damaging during this recent stretch of seven losses in nine games before Friday’s win.
Miami entered Friday having allowed 40.4 shooting on three-pointers over its previous nine games, fourth worst in the league.
Before this stretch, Miami had permitted opponents to shoot only 32.8 percent on threes this season, which was best in the league from a defensive standpoint.
On Friday, the Mavericks made 7 of 13 threes in the third - with Curry hitting four of those - to turn a 12-point deficit into a five-point lead.
Dallas went to the fourth shooting 45 percent on threes (17 for 38) and finished at 42 percent (21 for 50).
Though Doncic went 0 for 6 on threes, Curry was 8 for 9 on threes, Kristaps Porzingis 6 for 14 and Tim Hardaway Jr. 3 for 7.
Hardaway was cheered on by his father, former Heat guard Tim Hardaway, who had a front row seat.
Since Feb. 4, Miami has allowed the second-most baskets in the league from 20 to 24 feet and third-most from 25 to 28 feet. That problem continued Friday, but Miami survived nevertheless.
▪ After starting Olynyk alongside Adebayo in the past three games, Spoelstra made another change, opting for Derrick Jones Jr., who did good work defensively on Doncic.
The thinking was to give Jones an opportunity to defend Doncic and to match up with Dallas’ quick, perimeter-oriented lineup featuring the 6-5 Hardaway Jr. and 6-7 Dorian Finney-Smith at the forward spots.
Jones defended Doncic at the outset, holding him scoreless (on 0 for 3 shooting) over the first seven minutes and drawing an offensive foul from Doncic.
Butler also defended Doncic during stretches, and several other players matched up with Doncic on the Heat’s defensive switches.
And the Heat played a zone for stretches - a defensive approach that Miami had used a lot in the first half of the season but less frequently since the trade with Memphis earlier this month.
Doncic finished the first half with eight points on one for seven shooting and three turnovers. He was off with his long-range shooting all night but broke through in the third with drives to the basket (11 points in the third) before having a quiet fourth quarter.
Doncic didn’t score in the fourth until the final 1:11.
“I thought his [previously injured] thumb bothered him,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. “Miami did some things that made the game hard on us.”
As for Olynyk, he had started the previous three games, shooting 9 for 13 on threes but playing only 57 combined minutes. Miami outscored its opponents by 33 points with Olynyk on the court over those games.
Miami was a plus 20 in Olynyk’s minutes on Friday, as he continued perhaps his best stretch of the season.
▪ The presence of two of Slovenia’s best NBA players this century - Doncic and Dragic - drew a large crowd to AmericanAirlines Arena. And for a second consecutive season, Dragic’s team emerged victorious.
The Heat estimated there were nearly 3000 Slovenians in attendance, and they made plenty of noise, cheering baskets by both players.
The Heat also welcomed 14 journalists from Slovenia and three from Serbia.
“We have one of the best fan bases in the world,” Dragic said. “It’s always nice to see Luka and talk smack.
“I knew Luka when he was 5, 6. I played with his dad. He was the ballboy. He’s really. I’m really impressed. I knew what he could achieve but not so quickly. He’s playing an MVP level.”
Dragic, of course, was playing against a team that nixed a potential trade for him last summer.
He scored two key baskets in the fourth quarter and finished with the 16 points, 5 assists and 4 rebounds.
▪ The Heat will keep an eye on the buyout market over the next 48 hours.
A player who has been in the NBA this season must be waived by Sunday in order to be eligible to play in the playoffs with another team. Those players can then be signed at any point before the end of the regular season and still be playoff eligible.
Heat president Pat Riley mentioned the possibility of a buyout addition after Miami acquired Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill in a trade earlier this month.
“We’ll keep our eyes out,” Riley said, noting the value of a power rotation player who could rim deterrence. “We’re happy this transaction gave us the possibility of going after a buyout [player] maybe later on.”
With the Heat’s roster at the league maximum of 15 players, it would have to release a player to open a spot to make an addition. And as of Friday, there had been no discussions with Solomon Hill about a buyout, and Hill has said he wants to stay, even though his playing time has been sparse since being acquired from Memphis.
There are still a few players who could be bought out before Sunday’s deadline. That list includes Evan Turner, who has been allowed to work out with other teams while still under contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves, along with Charlotte’s Bismack Biyombo, Minnesota’s Allen Crabbe and Cleveland’s Matthew Dellavedova.
Former Heat guard Tyler Johnson, who attended Wednesday’s game between the Heat and Timberwolves at AmericanAirlines Arena, is already available to be signed. Johnson was released by the Suns earlier this month.
Center DeMarcus Cousins is available after being released by the Lakers last week to make room for Markieff Morris. But even though the Heat likes Cousins and pursued him last summer, there’s no indication he’s looking to leave Southern California, and he’s expected to be out until the playoffs, anyway.
Among players who changed teams after buyouts: Marvin Williams, who went from the Charlotte Hornets to the Milwaukee Bucks, Morris from the Pistons to the Lakers, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist from the Hornets to the Mavericks, and DeMarre Carroll from the Spurs to the Rockets.
This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 10:38 PM.
