Mateo’s Hoop Diary: Heat suffer one of their worst losses of the season to the Utah Jazz

The Heat blew it at home against the notorious tankers, who rested their two best players in the fourth quarter. They even had to go to their rookie, who was one of their top two offensive players, but he missed the go-ahead shot in the corner.

The Jazz refused to guard the 3-point line, probably knowing that the Heat would slow down eventually. Their massive, three-big lineup recovering 15 offensive rebounds and suppressing the inside action kept them on the Heat’s heels. 

The hosts went to intermission down nine points, and Bam Adebayo did most of the heavy lifting to drag them out of the hole. They also got some help because Jaren Jackson Jr. and Lauri Markkanen started the fourth quarter on the bench and never checked in for the final stretch. Yet they failed to do the rest, and Brice Sensabaugh dropped Jaime Jaquez Jr. and hit a pull-up triple to take the lead with 47 seconds left. 

The Heat lost 115-111. This was their 13th loss decided by five points or fewer (7-6). 

Takeaways:

• The Utah Jazz will have to send their pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it falls outside of the top eight in the lottery, so they didn’t want to win this game. That same team, which has had one of the worst defenses in the league, held Miami to 93.4 points per 100 possessions in the half-court, good enough for the 38th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass.

• Bam Adebayo and Andrew Wiggins carried the Heat in the fourth quarter, combining for seven baskets at short and long range. Yet, they missed five free throws in the period, and Jaquez blanked the other two. 

• Kasparas Jakučionis has been scoring from deep over the last couple of games, hitting 75% of attempts. 

• Jaren Jackson Jr. probably hasn’t unpacked all of his bags since getting traded to Utah on Feb. 3. He shot poorly, but made seven baskets in the paint and behind the arc. Coach Will Hardy was asked if he was close to winning him and Markkanen into the fourth quarter, and he said he wasn’t. 

• Rookie Ace Bailey lit up Miami’s interior for a dozen points, which included two lobs.  He was the best player in the fourth quarter, slashing into the lane, making four baskets.

• Kel’el Ware fouled out in 14 minutes in one of his worst showings of the season.

• Despite the Jazz only scoring nine second-chance points, they still did damage by taking away precious possessions from the Heat. Their most effective rebounders were Jusuf Nurkić (16) and Kyle Filipowski (11).