Mateo’s Hoop Diary: The Raptors sullied Pat Riley Court, humbling the Heat

The Heat were dinosaur meat, embarrassing themselves in one of the worst showings of the season at home to the Toronto Raptors. The first omen that it would be a colossal meltdown was when they started making one of 12 attempts, but the outcome was clear when they fell behind double-digits in the third quarter and the team had as much animation as a corpse. 

The Raptors controlled the pace by making the Heat check the ball in often and getting back quickly. They also wrecked their half-court offense and permitted them only eight trifectas in 30 attempts. 

Guarding Scottie Barnes was their biggest problem. He accessed the lane at will, scoring nine of his 10 baskets there. After him, it was Sandro Mamukelashvili’s four 3-pointers that broke their spine. 

It was also the second time this season the hosts scored below 100 points, and neither starter made 50% of their shots. They had eight of the team’s 17 turnovers.  

They’ve lost eight of their last 10, and there seems to be no antidote as the team has fallen to .500 (15-15). Norman Powell said postgame that players have not run some of coach Erik Spoelstra’s play calls during the losing streak (3). He said that they are a young team that has to focus on the details, but it’s on the veterans- him, Andrew Wiggins and Bam Adebayo- to fix it.

Bam Adebayo turned into Dennis Rodman on offense, playing with little confidence.  Kel’el Ware failed to follow up on last game’s bright spots, and he only played 21 minutes. Their best player was Jaime Jaquez Jr. off the bench with 21 points on 0n 56.3% shooting. 

The result had Spoelstra stunned:“I don’t know. This is not what I would’ve predicted. I thought we were ready…”

But they were lifeless, and it came after he challenged them to have a higher level of effort when they lost to the Knicks on Sunday.