Heat loses in Golden State: Takeaways and details
Five takeaways from the Heat’s 123-110 loss against the defending champion Golden State Warriors on Thursday night at Chase Center:
▪ Thanks in large part to Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, the Heat kept thwarting Warriors runs and hung around until Golden State - and Steph Curry - made a decisive push in the final minutes.
Butler was very good, finishing with 27 points, six rebounds, eight assists and six steals in a performance reminiscent of his 2022 postseason.
Adebayo produced his best game of the season, with 26 points (10 for 13 shooting), 8 rebounds, four steals and the usual defensive activity.
Several times, Butler or Adebayo rescued the Heat when the Warriors seemed on the cusp of breaking it open.
But the Warriors made their game-defining run after the Heat closed to 103-100 at the 6:54 mark. And Curry, naturally, was in the middle of it.
Butler, Kyle Lowry and Gabe Vincent missed threes, Kevin Looney dunked and Curry nailed one of his classic shake-and-bake threes over Tyler Herro. That made it a 108-100 game.
Adebayo hit a jumper, and Klay Thompson and Max Strus exchanged threes, leaving Golden State ahead 111-105.
Curry then drove to the basket, pushing the lead to eight, then extended the margin to 11 with a 26-foot three pointer. He then sank a 19-footer a bit later, giving him 10 points in the quarter.
On multiple occasions, Golden State caught the Heat flat-footed with cuts to the basket and timely offensive rebounds that led to 27 second-chance points, compared with eight for Miami.
The Warriors pounded the Heat on the boards, 50-31.
“Tonight, we just weren’t really committed to those blockouts and extra dives coming down to rebound,” Erik Spoelstra said. “It has to be a group effort. We are much better than we showed tonight. It was costly, the 27 second chance points.”
The Heat survived all of that for awhile but ultimately couldn’t survive the brilliance of Curry, who closed with 33.
Miami ultimately ran out of a gas on the second night of a back-to-back set. The Heat (2-4) closes this three-game road trip on Saturday in Sacramento.
▪ Playing against one of the best backcourts in modern history, the Heat’s guards came up short.
Curry and Thompson outscored Tyler Herro and Lowry, 52 to 19.
This was an off night for Herro, who entered averaging 19.6 points on 46.7 percent shooting. He struggled early, shooting 2 for 8 and closed with seven points on 3 for 12 shooting, including 1 for 5 on threes.
Meanwhile, Lowry - coming off a very good game in Portland - was generally productive, with 12 points, eight assists, five rebounds and three steals.
The second night of a back-to-back set was hardly the ideal time to face the rested Splash Brothers, who rebounded from a forgettable Tuesday blowout loss in Phoenix, when Curry missed 10 of 17 shots and Klay Thompson missed 7 of 8 before being ejected for jawing with Devin Booker.
Against the Heat, Curry made 7 of 14 threes on his 33 point night and added nine assists and seven rebounds.
Thompson hit 5 of 14 threes on a 19-point night.
Thompson entered averaging 19.9 points in 14 games against the Heat. This was Curry’s 20th game against the Heat; he came in averaging 24.8 against Miami.
“That’s a championship caliber team on both sides of the floor,” Butler said. “They deserved to win.”
▪ Besides once again filling the box score in several areas, Butler also is displaying a better three-point touch.
Butler shot 24.4, 24.5 and 23.3 percent on threes in his first three seasons for Miami: a combined 81 for 337.
He made only 29, 25 and 27 threes in those three seasons.
But Butler entered Thursday having hit 3 of his first 8 three-point attempts this season. And against Golden State, he took five in the first half and made three of them, then hit one from the corner over Draymond Green midway through the third quarter.
But Butler missed a three with the Heat down 103-100 and just under seven minutes left.
If this is the start of Butler taking and making more threes, it’s worth noting that this actually began during last season’s playoffs, when Butler made 23 of 68 (33.8 percent) in 17 playoff games against Atlanta, Philadelphia and Boston.
▪ The Heat was short on bigs. And that meant early playing time for Nikola Jovic.
With Dwayne Dedmon sidelined with plantar fasciitis in his left foot, Jovic played eight minutes, finishing with four points (2 for 4 shooting) and one assist and a steal but no rebounds.
James Wiseman, the first pick of the 2020 draft, grabbed an offensive rebound over Jovic and dunked on him.
Jovic drained a 17-footer for his first basket late in the second quarter, but then allowed Draymond Green to drive by him for a dunk.
Then Jovic, playing all of his minutes when Adebayo was on the bench, hit a short hook early in the third before missing a three.
During the fourth quarter, Butler played center for a brief stretch.
As for Omer Yurtseven, he traveled with the team to Portland and participated in one shootaround before being sent back to Miami, on Thursday, with the ankle injury that has sidelined him since the second game of preseason.
Was there a setback?
“No, I actually think he is making progress,” Spoelstra said. “We wanted to just get him checked out and then he’ll train there. Hopefully when we get back [to Miami on Sunday], he’ll be able to really start to prepare to get ready to play.”
Spoelstra said the ankle impingement has caused Yurtseven to lose “a little bit of his mobility. He had everything scanned, everything was clear, and he just needs to go through this process that he’s going through right now. It just takes a little bit of time. He’s basically doing everything except for full contact, full explosion.”
▪ Before the game, Udonis Haslem took a few minutes to acknowledge Wednesday’s milestone.
Haslem said playing the final 2:16 of the Heat’s win at Portland on Tuesday was meaningful because of what it signified.
Haslem joins Dirk Nowitzki and Kobe Bryant as the only players in NBA history to play in a game in each in 20 seasons for the same team.
The “moment [I entered], I said, ‘this is it,’” Haslem said. “It solidifies my 20th season… Guys congratulated me” after the game. “It’s cool to get it out of the way.”
Haslem has said this will be his final season. His father Johnnie Haslem, who died last season, had wanted his son to reach the 20-year milestone.
“Every minute is special,” Haslem of his playing time in his final season. “I’ll savor all these memories.”
He said if he’s needed in any close games this season, those minutes will be “more important” than finishing out a blowout.
“Whenever [Spoelstra] needs me, he’ll give me a heads up at shootaround,” Haslem said.
Minutes in a close game didn’t come Tuesday, with Spoelstra opting for Jovic to fill his frontcourt void.
This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 12:15 AM.
