Mateo’s Hoop Diary: The Heat got crushed by the Hornets, staying in Play-in Tournament territory

The Heat got obliterated in the second half in Charlotte against the Hornets. It’s their second loss in a row, and the captain, Bam Adebayo, was out with calf tightness, which affected their rebounding and coverages. 

The Hornets were playing with extra synchronicity and force, causing coach Erik Spoelstra to summon his troops. They were mostly off target, and it turned into a track meet, while they got contributions from their background players.

The Heat started the second quarter down two points and struggled to contain Charlotte’s inside-out attack. Davion Mitchell was called for a flagrant foul one after hitting LaMelo Ball’s nether region when curling around a screen. Yet, the Heat’s saving grace was repeated trips to the charity line, and more hustle from Keshad Johnson.

They subsequently were stunned by Charlotte’s inside pressure to start the third quarter, and got some relief when Pelle Larsson drew Kon Knueppel’s fourth foul early in the third quarter, forcing him to sit next to Brandon Miller, who also had four. The Heat’s first substitution of the period came after six minutes with Jaime Jaquez Jr. coming in for Norman Powell, and Johnson came back soon to work the back of the zone. 

Eventually, Coby White erupted with strikes from short and long range, and the game got testy as Tyler Herro and Josh Green tangled up, causing both herds to be separated. 

Ball then got out in the fast lane, setting up others plus himself. Miller also got in on the action, nailing two 3-pointers, and Knueppel erupted, causing the Heat to fall apart. The visitors were down 21 by the time Herro checked back in and got uglier quickly. 

The Heat lost 136-106.

Spoelstra said the floodgates were opened. “It was disappointing to see. There were parts of the game where it was just highly competitive…We’ll learn what we can, but we have to move on and get on to the next fight, and make sure we are ready and do what we need to do for Thursday night.”

Takeaways:

• No team in the NBA is getting surprised by the Charlotte Hornets since they’ve been playing well for two months. Their high-level offense shredded the Heat to pieces, and they scored 37 points in the third and 40 in the fourth quarter. Keep in mind that the Heat were down six with over a minute into the fourth. The Hornets have a collection of young, talented players who play unselfishly, and White had his best game since being traded to the Hornets on Feb. 4.

• The Heat’s biggest bright spot was Johnson, who hustled for loose balls, made timely cuts, downed multiple treys and even threw down the reverse dunk from the baseline. He got minutes over Nikola Jović, who was cleared after 11 absences (back injury). Spoelstra said, “The majority of our young guys have gotten their opportunities. [Johnson] didn’t get his opportunity frequently yet because of all the young guys [who] were playing, but we felt all season long that he had been getting a lot better and his minutes in the G League had been very good.”

• The defense was compromised without Adebayo. Additionally, Herro and Powell started together and it leaves the team vulnerable since they are not great at stopping the ball. The Heat allowed the Hornets to score 128.3 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 90th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass.

• Herro and Powell were inefficient as the team’s highest scorers, logging 20 and 17 points. Ball was the player of the game, logging 30 points 0n 50% shooting, with 13 assists and six rebounds. The Hornets had four more double-figure scorers log between 14 and 24 points.

• The Heat have 13 games left and are the seventh seed, being only a half-game behind the Orlando Magic. The Magic have the tiebreaker because they beat the Heat five times this season.