Surviving Jalen Brunson’s rampage is like a raft trying to stay afloat throughout a storm in the middle of open water, and the Heat were tipped over and lost in the waves. He had a season high of 47 points. 

 

New York was the hottest team in the East going into the game, and they buried 20 3-pointers, 10 coming in the corners. The Heat soiling themselves at the line also prevented any chance of a prosperous trip into Madison Square Garden. 

 

The season series is over, split at 2-2, and the Heat have gotten exposed in seven of their last eight outings. Yet the snowball effect started earlier, losing at home to the Cavaliers D-team on Nov. 12.

 

Coach Erik Spoelstra said that “you can’t leave anything to f-ing chances,” and said New York’s will to win is something the Heat are still trying to develop. 

 

Jalen Brunson filleted schemes, getting where he wanted, but the Heat’s desperation was palpable early and five of them combined for seven trifectas in the first quarter. Kel’el Ware’s movement through the lane on cuts also pushed them to a 37-30 lead. 

 

A drought had to happen to the visitors at some point, and it did in the second, yet they kept from bleeding out as Brunson pushed his output to 27 points, and Mikal Bridges made four 3-pointers. The Knicks took a four-point lead at halftime while scoring 11 points on the break and 22 in the lane. 

 

Then Ware made a pair of deep shots and scored from the dunks spot, plus Norman Powell discharged 19 third-quarter points on drive-bys and 3-pointers, keeping the crew within reaching distance. 

 

But the Heat started to fall apart in the fourth despite Ware and Powell being their biggest threats.  They didn’t get enough from Bam Adebayo, who never got in a rhythm with fewer touches, and the closest they got late was within two digits. Yet Brunson, Josh Hart and Bridges closed the curtain with free throws, a layup and a trey.  

 

They lost 132-125 after getting slaughtered in the half-court, and their transition attack was thwarted again. Jaime Jaquez Jr. was their only reserve to log a field goal in the second half. 

 

Spoelstra wasn’t interested in moral victories after the game, but there is one: Ware had 28 points on 73.3% shooting, with 19 rebounds, including six offensive. He is becoming one of the team’s top players, which should make organizing the starting lineup interesting going forward.

 

The Heat ended their five-game losing streak and held the scrappy Nets to 96 points in Brooklyn, tying their season best for contained opponent scoring. But it came at a tougher challenge than anticipated. 

 

They went big with Kel’el Ware next to Bam Adebayo in the main rotation, which was more common at the beginning of the year, and it helped them outrebound their opponents by eight. 

 

If one didn’t know any better, they might think that absences to Tyler Herro, Nikola Jović and Pelle Larsson contributed to them tying their fourth-lowest scoring game of the season. But that wasn’t the case. Adebayo, Dru Smith and Davion Mitchell blanked 10 3-pointers. Although Adebayo had 17 rebounds, and the three of them guarded like madmen.  

 

The crew rode the wave of Ware plus Jaime Jaquez Jr.’s rim attacks, and Norman Powell’s outside shooting. That was enough to offset Michael Porter Jr. and Nic Clayton carrying the Nets. 

 

The Heat started the fourth quarter ahead by four points and managed to get away despite shooting 33% in the restricted area for the period. They also benefited from Brooklyn’s poor off-ball execution and their inability to be a factor from deep. 

 

The Heat even gave rookie Kasparas Jakučionis seven minutes of action in his second stint of the season, and Ware was notably one of the closers in the game. The team pushing the lead to double digits made coach Erik Spoelstra comfortable with giving Adebayo more rest. 

 

It’s concerning that their transition attack was eradicated to 47th percentile (123.1 points per 100 plays) and their pace was 5.58 points below its average. They struggle when opponents exude equal hustle. Yet, to their credit, they won in a style that isn’t preferred, similar to a brawler having to rely on more technical skills to get a victory. 

 

The Heat’s record improved to 15-12 and to 5-8 on the road. They are tied with the Philadelphia 76ers for the sixth seed and 1.5 games out of third place in the East.

 

The next two are in Boston on Friday and New York on Sunday. 

They just can’t beat those guys. 

 

The Heat are only going home with $53,093 earned by losing to the Magic in Orlando in the knockout round of the Emirates Cup play. It’s the third time they’ve come up short against their pin-striped killers, and this time, the bench was dead weight, and they blanked too many open threes. 

 

The Magic set up a date with the winner of the Knicks-Raptors matchup and will at least make double the loot in the semifinals. 

 

The first quarter took 45 minutes, but the Heat held a 30-17 lead after their first seven made shots, including bursts from Tyler Herro and Norman Powell. The Magic also had seven turnovers and were held to scraps in the lane, but they were hungrier, much less going to allow themselves to get sacked.

 

Yet, of course, the Magic caught up a few minutes into the second quarter then took a brief lead in the latter stage as the Heat couldn’t stop them from getting to the body. It was like a fighter who unlocked the sweet spot and had their opponent stumbling over while getting whacked senseless. The hosts also sank five extra 3-pointers, which helped slow down the Heat by forcing them to check the ball more. 

 

Since the Heat is a collection of B-tier players, it took them until the end of the half to compose themselves. The visitors went to intermission ahead 57-56, and their bench was offset by Orlando’s.

 

Herro, Powell, and Adebayo’s long and short range baskets could only do so much because their rivals were the bigger and more athletic team. The Heat even went 19 minutes without a fastbreak basket courtesy of Orlando’s pressure. On top of that, the Magic figured out the zone, going into the fourth quarter ahead by six.

 

The Heat followed up, missing open looks while Desmond Bane’s rampage carried on. Coach Erik Spooestra was caught by the broadcast cameras, telling his crew that they weren’t giving a hard enough effort to get to Las Vegas for the next round but they weren’t able to stop the bleeding, even with the starters staying in until the last seconds.

 

They lost 117-108. Bane had 37 digits for the third time since Nov. 28, which included 15 in the fourth quarter. Additionally, the Heat’s transition attack was derailed to the 14th percentile at 88.2 points per 100 plays.

Spoelstra said after, “They had a huge second quarter… We’ve been struggling with this concept recently. If we’re not making shots, we are not getting stops.”

 

 

The Heat’s comeback effort in Dallas caved in as the Mavericks answered every run, completing the season series 1-1. The latter’s coach, Jason Kidd, said it would be a “man’s game” 20 minutes before tip-off, and he wasn’t wrong: it was a rebounding battle the visitors lost in trenches and they couldn’t buy baskets from deep.

 

Coach Erik Spoelstra said, “I felt like it was an opportunity that slipped for us to be able to have that gratification of winning a game where we weren’t making shots.”

 

Norman Powell was out with an ankle injury, so Pelle Larsson started in his place, and that was Spoelstra’s first mistake, using him over Kel’el Ware. They felt the absence of a shot creator while their transition attack had been shut off and didn’t have the extra muscle enough time to blow up Dallas’ actions.

 

Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro had it rolling in the first half, making jumpers and drive-by layups, but the latter was the only one in double-figure scoring, and most of their teammates had gone as cold. The second quarter meltdown saw them get outscored by 15 as Ryan Nembhard stung them with a few 3-pointers.

 

They went to halftime down 64-54.  Only 21.1% of threes were falling and the bench added next to nothing.

 

The Heatles were subsequently on the back foot most of the third because four Mavericks logged multiple baskets, and Herro’s offense ran out of gas. They then started deploying a full-court press and the 2-3 zone but couldn’t close the gap because they conceded two treys to Russell. 

 

Dallas then got comfortable, and the Heat’s 3-point shooting sliced the deficit to six with under five minutes left. Yet Andrew Wiggins kept brcking everything he threw up and shot the Heat out of it. Cooper Flagg afterward made a turnaround jumper in the lane and scored on a give-and-go set in the last two minutes to put the game out of reach.

 

The Heat lost 118-108. They made five fewer 3-pointers than Dallas and couldn’t stop them from scoring efficiently in the paint non-restricted area.

 

Game Notes:

 

• Top overall pick Cooper Flagg picked up three fouls and five minutes, but he went on to have a strong game, logging 22 points on 69.2% shooting, with six rebounds and two assists.

 

• The offense without Powell was missing a dependable scorer off catch-and-go moves. They were also held to 66.7 points per 100 transition plays, good enough for the 3rd percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. On top of that, Herro, Wiggins, Adebayo and Larsson combined for 20% of 3-point attempts.

 

• Ware had a career high in made triples (4), while putting up 22 points and 10 rebounds in 25 minutes. Despite his three late turnovers, he was the team’s best player in the fourth quarter and was the primary reason they got within striking distance.

The Heat shamed the Clippers, tying a franchise record in made 3-pointers (24) and setting a new season high in blocked shots (10). It was their fifth time scoring at least 140 points this season, yet they got sloppy at the end because of poor attention to detail and thinking the Clippers gave up. 

 

Miami started extra alert, coming off Saturday’s three-point loss at home. Coach Erik Spoelstra said that some of the motivation was that “really good teams don’t lose two in a row at home.”

 

Bam Adebayo broke the ice with a dominant first few minutes, nailing jumpers, attacking the basket, and swiping Ivica Zubac’s shot from behind. Then Andrew Wiggins went on the next flurry, making three baskets and blocking a shot in the corner. Four other Heatles made 3-pointers, bringing the output to seven out of nine for the quarter, and eight of them got on the scoreboard.

 

Their 14-point lead was short-lived because Kawhi Leonard rampaged through the lane, and the Clippers momentarily snatched the lead. Yet the Heat’s scorching 3-point shooting continued as they set a new season high for a half (14), and their lead was quickly raised to 26.

 

On top of that, Norman Powell is clearly not over the Clippers wasting his time with “blown smoke” over the summer before trading him, reflected by his 30 digits on 66.7% accuracy in the Heat’s second game against them this year. It was a slow start for him, but he eventually mowed down schemes, and he made three straight shots in the last few minutes of the first half, too.

 

They went to halftime ahead by 20, and their longest unanswered streak was 20 points, bringing their block total to nine as well. Four Heatles had multiple treys apiece, and Powell plus Davion Mitchell made the most (3).

 

They kept beating a dead horse, adding seven more trifectas, taking a 32-point lead going into the fourth. Clippers coach Ty Lue even briefly benched his starters two minutes into the third as it became clear his crew needed external motivation. 

 

The ball movement subsequently slowed down, and coach Erik Spoelstra re-inserted four starters five minutes into the fourth as they were up 25. Leonard erupted again, logging 19 points in the period on jumpers and drives, further shrinking the lead to 12. But Powell, Wiggins, Mitchell, and Herro combining for six shots in the lane in crunch time was enough to hold off LAC’s comeback. Spoelstra then gave rookie Kasparas Jakučionis his first NBA action in the last 53.7 seconds.

 

The Heat won 140-123. Eight players combined for their 24 3-pointers.

 

Adebayo kept it cool in his on-court interview on the abundance of 3-pointers, saying, “We work on that every practice…”

 

Games Notes:

 

• Five Heatles logged double-figure scoring, between 16 and 30 points, and the half-court offense logged 120 points per 100 plays, good enough for the 96th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass. Additionally, most of Miami’s attempts came in the paint non-restricted area and above the break. They shot 12.2% above the league average at the former spot and 21.7% higher than the average at the latter.

 

• Pelle Larsson injured his ankle in the first half and didn’t play the rest of the game. Spoelstra offered nothing but crumbs, saying the diagnosis from him and the trainers is that “he would be alright.”

 

• Aside from 16 points, Mitchell recorded 12 assists against two turnovers. Spoelstra said, “It’s the pace. Every time there was an opportunity for us to extend the lead in the open court, he was just making all the right reads…”

 

• Adebayo was involved with a good chunk of the long-range action, setting a career high (5) in makes. Additionally, the Heat made 30% of their 3-point attempts in the fourth quarter. 

 

• James Harden played two minutes in the second half, and he was not injured.

 

• The Heat were in cruise control to start fourth, and a Nikola Jović sighting never came.