Mateo’s Hoop Diary: Heat fail to complete fourth-quarter comeback in San Antonio, falling to 3-2

After 12 lead changes and four ties, the Miami Heat fell to the Spurs in their visit to San Antonio. For the first time in franchise history, the latter starts a season 5-0.

“We were kind of uneven all night long, but there were two key possessions there, going down the stretch where they got offensive rebounds, and both of those possessions ended up in open threes.”

Being without their starting backcourt of Tyler Herro and Norman Powell left the offense without the necessary penetrators. They compensated, draining 15 3-pointers, but they didn’t get into as many transition actions as they usually have this year. Plus, this third-leading scorer, Jaime Jaquez Jr., was locked up.

Bam Adebayo was the best big on the floor until halftime, destroying actions and somehow, he wasn’t rewarded with free throw attempts when going through contact in the lane. And Victor Wembanyama was held below his standards until intermission because the Heat tried to get the ball out of his hands early in the half-court, showing him bigs and smalls (to go at his dribble),

The Heat were neck and neck in the first quarter and didn’t let seven turnovers cripple their offense thanks to Adebayo and Davion Mitchell combining for seven baskets at short and long range.

Then their second-quarter shooting exposed coverages and nauseated Spurs’ coach Mitch Johnson. The Heat made five threes and four shots in the lane, yet San Antonio prevented them from making it ugly, as they raised the intensity by 50° and punched the accelerator in transition. Notably, the Spurs, being the third-slowest team in the NBA, played faster in the first half.

The Heat were down 59-58 at intermission, but had a 21-13 edge in assists and three players (Adebayo, Wiggins, and Fontecchio) in double-figure scoring.

Subsequently, the Heat went colder than a corpse in the third quarter, scoring one point through four minutes and falling behind by nine in that span. They also fell apart defensively, giving up the corners thrice and the non-Wembanyama minutes were a failure, too, because they couldn’t make up any ground.

The Heat deployed a zone and full-court press, erasing their 15-point deficit and taking a single-digit lead with seven minutes to go. Spoelstra said, “Did I want to go to the zone? No…that group was flying around,” giving credit to Wiggins, Jaquez, and Dru Smith for getting back in the game. They were on the verge of a signature win, but they followed up with three turnovers and allowed late triples, closing their own coffins.

The Heat lost 107-101 and were beaten in three key areas: fastbreak points (18-9), second chance points (16-14) and points off turnovers (19-14). On top of that, the Heat were held to 13.6% below the league average in the paint non-restricted area, and their half-court offense was neutralized to 85.7 points per 100 plays, good enough for the 25th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. Part of the reason the offense stagnated is because Wembanyama had all five blocks in the second half.

After the game, Herro was in the locker room with his jeans rolled up to his knee, soaking his left foot in ice, and Adebayo was icing his knees.