Mateo’s Hoop Diary: The Heat cruise past the Grizzlies, and Andrew Wiggins breaks 15K points

The Heat boat-raced the depleted Grizzlies in Miami on the second night of a back-to-back. They scored easily on the break, absorbed rebounds and got steady scoring from the veterans.  

Coach Erik Spoelstra called it one of the most mature post-up games Bam Adebayo has played, and also said that the team would have held the Grizzlies to 110 points if not for the last minute and a half. 

The team kept getting to the line, Andrew Wiggins was getting anything he wanted on cuts and catch-and-shoot jumpers. Additionally, Tyler Herro and Norman Powell took turns ripping up the schemes en route to a 73-point first half. Yet their defense was compromised, allowing Jaylen Wells and GG Jackson to have one of their best nights of the season, combining for 13 field goals.

The Heat subsequently continued to overwhelm the lane with nine baskets, while the Grizzlies’ 3-point shooting and hustle kept them briefly within striking distance. 

The former eventually took an 18-point edge into the fourth quarter. They went cold for a stretch, but the Grizzlies could never take the game by the throat. 

The Heat won 136-120, and it was their eighth-highest scoring game of the season. Wiggins said in the locker room that, “When we are [a] full squad, everyone healthy, we’re very hard to deal with.” 

The only absence was Davion Mitchell’s.

Takeaways:

• The Grizzlies put up a valiant effort, but they didn’t have enough firepower outside of GG Jackson and Ty Jerome to hang for long stretches. To boot, the third quarter was the most significant part of the game since five Heatles had multiple baskets, outscoring them by 13 points. That included nine digits from Kasparas Jakučionis, who scored on a backdoor cut, a corner trey, a fastbreak layup and freebies. 

• The Heat’s offense was rolling, scoring 127.1 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 88th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. On top of that, it was their second-straight game scoring at least 70 in the paint, which has only happened once early in the year between Nov. 7 and 8. And Wiggins scored 28 points on 90% shooting. 

• Myron “mayhem” Gardner got into a slight dust-up at the end of the game with Scotty Pippen Jr. after the former set a hard screen. The latter didn’t like it, came all the way down court and shoved Gardner while the Heat were up 21 points with fewer than two minutes left. It spilled into the stands and both were ejected.

• This was the 12th time the Heat have scored at least 70 points in the first half and remain undefeated in those games.

• Herro, Powell and Wiggins scored between 14 and 19 points in the first half and neither shot below 62.5%, leaving the Grizzlies with more holes than Swiss cheese. Then Herro cooled off, but the other two carried the team in the second half, combining for 18 points on 64% shooting. 

• Wiggins’ scoring pushed him past 15,000 regular-season points (15,007). Consider how the only other players in team history who scored at least 28 points on 90% shooting are LeBron James (31), Shaquille O’Neal (31), Hassan Whiteside (31) and Alonzo Mourning twice (43 & 29). Additionally, there are 26 NBA players with more career points than Wiggins.