As he exited Kaseya Center on Monday night, Bam Adebayo said there is no better way to end a year than with a win. Apparently, the Miami Heat believe there is no better way to also start the year.<\/p>\n
So make it a four-game winning streak, this time with a 118-112 New Year\u2019s victory Thursday night over the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesars Arena.<\/p>\n
Against the best team in the Eastern Conference, an opponent that had lost only twice previously at home this season, the Heat got off to the races with their running game and opened their 2026 schedule with arguably their most impressive victory of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a good start to 2026,\u201d Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. \u201cWe\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Tyler Herro and Pelle Larsson sidelined for the Heat, Norman Powell again took charge of the Heat offense, closing with 36 points, enough to offset the 31 of Detroit\u2019s Cade Cunningham.<\/p>\n
Up 22 earlier, the Heat saw the lead trimmed to two in the final minute, before holding on, in more of a grind-out win than the previous outbursts during this winning streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this was an important one for us to get because this wasn\u2019t a game where we put 140 on the board,\u201d Spoelstra said.<\/p>\n
It was yet another night of across-the-board contributions from Spoelstra\u2019s team. Beyond Powell\u2019s scoring, the Heat got 19 points from Jaime Jaquez Jr. and 17 from Andrew Wiggins. There also were 14 rebounds from Adebayo and 13 from Kel\u2019el Ware, as well as 11 assists from Davion Mitchell.<\/p>\n
So another win, finding a way, even if a bit less fluid.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuys are making plays,\u201d Wiggins said. \u201cThat\u2019s what it comes down to.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, so, onward, with Jaquez already a step toward his New Year\u2019s resolution, \u201cto win a lot of games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five Degrees of Heat from Thursday night\u2019s game:<\/p>\n
1. Game flow: Aided by a 14-0 run late in the first period, the Heat went into the second quarter up 33-26. After the Pistons regained the lead in the second period, the Heat pushed back for a 63-54 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
The Heat then string together a 15-0 run early in the third period and went up 22 in the quarter, before taking a 94-81 lead into the fourth.<\/p>\n
The Pistons trimmed their deficit to 98-92 early in the fourth and within 114-109 with 1:06 to play on an Ausar Thompson transition basket, capping a 10-2 Detroit run.<\/p>\n
A Javonte Green 3-pointer later would make it a 114-112 game, before Jaquez responded with a jumper for a 116-112 Heat lead with 28.9 seconds left.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust trying to, you know, win a game,\u201d Jaquez said of his baseline basket.<\/p>\n
A steal by Mitchell followed on the ensuing Pistons inbounds pass, with Powell converting a pair of free throws on the other end to close the scoring.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to snap back into how we needed to be defensively,\u201d Powell said, \u201cand buckle down and get the stops we needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
2. Powell play: Powell was up to 19 points by halftime, matching Cunningham\u2019s first-half output for the Pistons.<\/p>\n
Powell scored 11 of the Heat\u2019s final 13 points of the second quarter, following up with 15 points in the third.<\/p>\n
He closed 12 of 23 from the field, including 7 of 14 in 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
Spoelstra credited Powell with doing plenty on his own against a team committed to halfcourt defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cNorm through three quarters was getting so many of his points in random situations, and you need to against a good defense,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cYou can\u2019t just always run a play call.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powell extended his streak of games scoring in double figures to 32, dating to last season with the Los Angeles Clippers, three games off the longest such run of his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really had to hunt in transition to get some good looks,\u201d Powell said. \u201cI was able to do that throughout the course of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Big things: With Herro and Larsson out for the Heat, and with Tobias Harris and Caris LeVert out for the Pistons, both teams opened big.<\/p>\n
That had Detroit bulk of Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart matched at the outset against the Heat\u2019s length of Ware and Adebayo.<\/p>\n
The Heat\u2019s opening unit was rounded out by Powell, Wiggins and Mitchell.<\/p>\n
The Pistons size then was downsized when Duren was lost for the night with a sprained right ankle initially sustained in the second period.<\/p>\n
The Heat closed with a 47-41 rebounding advantage, including a 14-6 edge on the offensive glass.<\/p>\n
\u201cBam and Kel\u2019el were just terrific and physical on the glass,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cWe knew we\u2019d have to bring a physical edge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adebayo finished with 15 points, Ware with four.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to shift the mindset when you\u2019re not necessarily shooting well,\u201d Adebayo said of the collective Heat board work that also included eight from Wiggins.<\/p>\n
4. Hail Jaime: A game after going for 11 assists, it was eyes back on the rim for Jaquez, who was up to 13 points on 6-of-7 shooting by halftime.<\/p>\n
Jaquez has now scored at least 16 in each of his last four games, one point shy of his fifth 20-point game in the last six.<\/p>\n
He finished 9 of 13 from the field, with five rebounds, and that final Heat basket.<\/p>\n
5. A Cunningham rerun: In the teams\u2019 previous meeting, a 138-135 Pistons victory on Nov. 29 in Miami, Cunningham closed with 29 points, eight assists, four rebounds and eight turnovers.<\/p>\n
This time, in addition to his 31 points, Cunningham had 11 assists, eight rebounds and seven turnovers.<\/p>\n
The difference is Cunningham also shot 17 of 18 from the line this time, after going 0 for 1 from the line in the teams\u2019 previous meeting. Until Thursday, Cunningham had never had more than seven free throws against the Heat.<\/p>\n
But he also was just 6 of 16 from the field, with Adebayo praising the Heat\u2019s ability to mix and mask coverages.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the thing,\u201d Adebayo said. \u201cMake it difficult. Switch the coverage up, even if it\u2019s still pick and roll. Blitz him sometimes. Sometimes you send a double. Make him keep thinking throughout the game where it\u2019s unpredictable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As he exited Kaseya Center on Monday night, Bam Adebayo said there is no better way to end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[114,123,125,2490,124,2295,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-103199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-miami","10":"tag-miami-headlines","11":"tag-miami-heat","12":"tag-miami-news","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}