The Heat failed to hold off the Celtics in Miami on account of getting wasted by Anfernee Simons in the fourth quarter and going colder than liquid helium. Miami’s top players, who were stepping up most of the night, shrank when adversity hit.

 

“Momentum really shifted probably when we were up 20 in the first half, and then they just started walking us down with the offensive rebounds and second chance points,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. 

 

Yet the Heat pushed the pace early, making six trifectas and seven paint baskets to close the first quarter with a 36-25 lead. The Celtics’ offensive rebounding and second-chance scoring did damage against the small unit, but Tyler Herro subsequently shot them out of a drought in the second quarter, with a pair of transition triples and a pick-6.

 

Bam Adebayo roamed everywhere and also added three extra baskets, plus Norman Powell sliced into the lane twice, keeping the club’s double-digit edge going into halftime (64-54). 

 

Jaylen Brown then torched them, getting inside the square when he pleased. Despite the Celtics not getting closer than six points in the frame, they were slowly unfastening the Heat’s defense like continuous body shots that lower the guard below the chin. 

 

The hosts surrendered their advantage after a flat start in the fourth, and their bench couldn’t keep up with Boston’s. Simons went on a heater that only a blizzard would extinguish, and at one point, went on an 11-0 run by himself, and totaled 18 in the fourth. They outscored the hosts by 15 in the period, which was Miami’s third-worst shooting fourth quarter of the season.

 

The Heat lost 119-114. 

 

Takeaways: 

 

The Celtics scored the most second-chance points this season by a Heat opponent (31). Nine first-half turnovers offset some of their impact, but they cleaned up their ball security after intermission and got stronger as the game went on. Additionally, Sam Houser’s left-side trey gave them the lead seven minutes into the fourth. Simons and Brown each seized it back before the final buzzer.  

 

It’s the halfway point of the season, and the Heat have a 21-20 record. They have dealt with tons of injuries, but they’ve had letdowns, like this game, and have been a bad team on the road. 

 

Adebayo was the best player on the floor in the first half. He had 17 points on 54.5% shooting and went on to miss nearly everything post-halftime. He’s a highly productive offensive player when he’s aggressive, using his athletic gifts on catch-and-go moves, but too often, he doesn’t keep it going for a whole game.  

 

The Heat were without two of their best playmakers- Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Davion Mitchell. The transition attack got weaker as the game went on, and their absence was mostly felt as the team ran out of gas late. 

 

Simons blasted the Heat, moving around screens and hunting weak defenders. He totaled 39 points, including seven 3-pointers. Spoelstra said, “There weren’t a ton of glaring breakdowns. He just went on an absolute roll, and we struggled to score…”

 

Kel’el Ware was benched for the second half. Spoelstra’s reasoning was “It was one matchup after the other. It was a tough matchup for him in Boston (Dec. 19) with all the coverages, and the same thing tonight.”

The Heat valiantly challenged the Thunder on the second night back-to-back, but OKC’s horsepower and stellar shot-making broke them down.

 

Teams typically raise their intensity by 100° in the game after they humiliate themselves, and it was the Heat’s turn this time following the Indiana catastrophe. They ended the first quarter ahead 34-32 thanks to big contributions from Andrew Wiggins, nailing three treys, and Tyler Herro making four shots in the lane. 

 

Still, they were sloppy with five early turnovers, and they coughed it up five more times in the second quarter. The inside action cooled off for a while, and OKC’s advantage in second-chance scoring extended to 15-0. On top of that, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ripped up schemes from inside and out, but the Heat maintained a five-point lead at intermission in large part because the Thunder couldn’t drain makeable deep shots.

 

SGA and Williams followed up torching the lane, and the Heat countered in their interior while they could. It resembled two fighters swinging wildly for the body in a boxing ring, but the Thunder were like a heavyweight who eventually overwhelmed a cruiserweight with their power, and eventually created an eight-point lead with the help of three treys to close the quarter.

 

Turnovers remained a problem, and Jaime Jaquez Jr., on cue, lost the ball twice more at the start of the fourth because of OKC’s ball pressure, pushing the total to 17. The team even gave up consecutive baseline cuts before coach Erik Spoelstra called a timeout. It didn’t do much as the Thunder continued to present an unsolvable problem for the defense.

 

The Heat lost 124-112. They were also outscored in second-chance scoring, 25-0. They went winless on the road trip (0-3) and will not be practicing on Monday. They didn’t play the Chicago game on Thursday because of a condensation issue at the United Center. The Heat will play the Thunder again on Jan. 17 in Miami. 

 

Takeaways:

 

• The Heat’s transition attack was derailed to 80 points per 100 transition plays, good enough for the eighth percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. They also did as much as they could to match the Thunder’s intensity for three quarters, but great teams can separate themselves when they decide they want to. 

 

 

• Coach Erik Spoelstra said the turnovers diffused any momentum the Heat had. He also said the team needs to be mentally tougher the next time they see the Thunder. “They forced us into a lot of mistakes.” 

 

• Bam Adebayo was most affected by the pressure, misfiring seven of his 10 shots. He got schooled a couple of times, but guarded well and was a big factor on the glass, recovering seven of his 14 rebounds in the first half.  The next player bothered by OKC’s defense the most was Jaquez, finishing with five points and five of the team’s 23 turnovers. All of those giveaways helped push the Thunder in transition and they were miles better than the Heat in the open court.

 

 

• Without Norman Powell, the team’s top player this season, they lacked the extra scoring on and off the dribble. But defense was what the Heat needed more of, as they had shot well through three periods while still within striking distance before the fourth began. 

 

 

• SGA is an unreal weapon, who drains jumpers on the move. Half his shots connect at 3-10 feet and an astonishing 59.1% fall at 10-16 feet from the cup. The Heat’s strategy was to double him so others would have to beat them, but that couldn’t happen every time. To give a better idea of his shooting prowess, consider how he isolated Adebayo on the right side, burying a long two in his eye.

 

 

• The Heat made five 3-pointers in the first quarter, surpassing the four logged in Indiana on Saturday. They totaled 17, and Wiggins made the most (7) and was the team’s leading scorer with 23 points on 50% shooting.

 

A humiliation on prime time programming starts the four-game road trip. 

 

The season series with the Timberwolves is over and they lost both outings over a three-day stretch. Tyler Herro’s return was spoiled as the Timberwolves forced their submission, and Rudy Gobert was the most dominant big man on the floor, amassing 13 digits and 17 rebounds.

 

Coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game that Gobert is one of the most underrated players in the league and that Kel’el Ware “was introduced to someone who brought a physical presence.”

 

Bam Adebayo played well below standard. He’s been through a toe injury and back spasm this year, but it was the ninth straight night scoring below 20 (7) and the 12th time this season he has shot below 40%. Andrew Wiggins and Davion Mitchell disappeared, too. The trio combined for 21 points on 25% shooting. 

 

Norman Powell carried the crew before it got ugly, and Herro played as if he hadn’t missed a beat, scoring from inside and out, plus setting up two teammates for 3-pointers. They went to halftime down seven, then started getting smacked around, getting outrebounded by 13 and getting lit up by eight trifectas in the second half. The outcome was obvious after they missed six shots in a row to start the fourth quarter.

 

The final marker highlighted a 28-point loss, and the team could only score 38 in the lane. It was also the Heat’s third time this year tallying below 100 points (94). Minnesota had six scorers in double figures, totaling between 12 and 26 points.  

 

These are the losses that can’t be flushed, especially since they lost to the same team by 10 earlier. Despite being the fourth game in six nights, they went soft when they saw Minnesota’s avalanche coming. The autopsy, being the worst since the Toronto Raptors massacred them in Miami on Dec. 23, shows how exposed the Heat are against versatile size.

 

The smart teams are getting better at denying the Heat success in transition, as was the case Tuesday with the Wolves holding them to the second percentile in points per 100 plays. The half-court offense, lacking enough juice, and barely being able to get to the line, compounded the issue.

 

Spoelstra said, “We showed less of a spirit on this one. The one on Saturday, we had a spirit to fight until the end. That’s what is most disappointing to me as the head coach. The last six minutes, it felt like we let it go.”

Nikola Jokić couldn’t play the second half because he was a victim of friendly fire, and the Heat’s assortment of bodies outlasted their vulnerable guests, completing their season series at a split (1-1). Miami’s victory also ended an 11-game losing streak to the Mile High killers that stretched back to the Orlando bubble in 2020.

 

The Nuggets had nine giveaways through the first 16 minutes, plus defended and hit the glass like they had the South Beach flu. Yet four of them scored between 10 and 21 first-half points, erasing a 15-digit deficit to go into halftime deadlocked at 63. Then Jamal Murray, Spencer Jones and Jonas Valančiūnas carried them as long as they could, but the Heat outscored them by 23 the rest of the way.

 

Bam Adebayo’s return from back spasms was one of Miami’s big-time reinforcements. He only played eight minutes against Denver on Nov. 5 because of a toe injury, and this time, communication was up to par, so passing and driving lanes were disrupted. It still wasn’t enough to contain Jokić’s 13-point second quarter, as he swerved through schemes for shots through the square and downed two jumpers.

 

The Heat’s edge subsequently swelled to 27 as Denver could never shape up mentally. Powell, Nikola Jović, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel’el Ware and Andrew Wiggins each logged at least four baskets in the second half. The Nuggets even desperately went to a zone, trying to stop the bleeding, and later surrendered midway through the fourth, emptying the bench.

Takeaways:

 

• The Nuggets went too long treating the game like a meaningless one in December, and the Heat’s intensity on the glass, particularly recovering 10 offensive rebounds in the first half, helped them take 11 extra shots by intermission.  The Heat also got back to pushing the pace, scoring in the 83d percentile in points per 100 transition plays.

 

• The Heat’s 3-point party (10) in the third pushed them to an 11-point lead going into the fourth, after only six treys in the first half. It continued in the fourth, and they finished with 22, falling three short of setting a franchise record.

 

• This was the first time in a while that Adebayo has looked like an All-Star. He can be a fluid offensive player when he commits to attacking the lane. He played 21 minutes, totaling 13 points on 50% shooting, with 10 boards and four assists. Seven other Heatles also scored in double figures.

 

• Jović had some extra vigor for this game, perhaps because Jokić is a teammate on the national Serbian squad. He was strong attacking the basket and tied his career high of five 3-point makes.

 

• The Heat are 7-0 this season when scoring at least 140 points (147-123).

 

• Spoelstra was encouraged by the double big lineup, featuring Adebayo and Ware and said there will be possessions that the combo is not aesthically pleasing. They combined for eight offensive rebounds, despite the second half turning into a tuneup.

 

• The Nuggets’ halftime announcement was that Jokić was questionable to return with a left knee injury after it hyperextended. Jones trampling his foot caused the leg to buckle. Valančiūnas started the second half in his place.

 

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.