Mateo’s Hoop Diary: Heat’s second-half drought leads to defeat in Boston

The Heat were desperate to atone for their humiliating performance on Tuesday when the 2006 championship team was honored in Miami, and they would have done well if they could have stopped the count early. The Celtics debuted former Heat nemesis Nikola Vučević, and overwhelmed them at close range. 

It was Boston’s sixth win since Jan. 26, holding opponents to 100 points or less. Yet the Heat ran up a 22-point first-half lead on a stream of 3-pointers and fastbreak strikes while the Celtics went through an offensive famine. Andrew Wiggins, in particular, had his jumper connect five times across the wings. 

They even threw out a full-court press and denied them success in transition. Yet, naturally, their prosperous run expired at halftime, coming into the third quarter inept on offense and missing 14 shots. 

It took the Celtics until the end of the frame to tie, courtesy of Jaylen Brown, Vučević and Payton Pritchard seizing the moment with nine combined baskets, five coming in the lane.  On the other side, Norman Powell jammed his finger trying to pass out of the lane early in the third, and returned for all of the fourth quarter. The snowball effect started in the meantime when Boston made consecutive triples midway through third, forcing a Heat timeout.

They failed to stop the bleeding, and Spoelstra even futilely deployed the offensively challenged Nikola Jović, and he missed all five second-half attempts. The fourth quarter subsequently turned into the Pritchard and Derrick White show as they both combined for 19 points on short and long-range baskets.

The Heat lost 98-96, and it was the fifth time they’ve been held below 100 points this year. They are winless on those nights. 

Spoelstra said, “As painful as this is, it’s going to drive us. And I feel we’re going to get there.”

Takeaways:

• The Heat held Boston to a season low in scoring in the first quarter (15), and these are the types of games that highlight how they don’t have enough, and proceeding with the build is a misguided effort. As well as they played early, it was one of the rare nights the Celtics weren’t prepared this year from tip-off. Nonetheless, the Heat are heading towards their fourth Play-In Tournament appearance in a row unless they have a legendary turnaround. Count on the rapture coming first after many of the players know they were bait for a trade that didn’t happen for Giannis Antetokounmpo.

• It’s clear that Bam Adebayo is wasting his time with this team as they are three games out of the sixth seed, which would bypass the Play-In, but now the Charlotte Hornets are on their tail. The Hornets are the hottest team in the league after a superb January, and have piled up eight straight wins as their high-end talent is blossoming. They haven’t done that since 2000.

• Recently named first-time All-Star Norman Powell was a marksman, burying buckets on and off the dribble from short and long range. He is averaging 23 points this season, which is the 14th highest in team history. 

• Derrick White earned his first career flagrant foul on a reckless closeout on Powell’s 3-point attempt.