MIAMI \u2014 Observations and other notes of interest from Saturday night\u2019s 125-115 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves:<\/p>\n
\u2013 At some point you need scoring options.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As Tyler Herro remains solely a fashion statement on the bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As Norman Powell deals with nagging issues.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As Jaime Jaquez Jr. exits stage left in this one with an ankle sprain.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As Bam Adebayo struggles against defensive length.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As Pelle Larsson sits again.<\/p>\n
\u2013 So early in the fourth quarter, as this started to slip away, before Powell returned, the entirety of the Heat shot creation on the court was Andrew Wiggins.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And then Wiggins fouled out midway through the fourth.<\/p>\n
\u2013 The Heat with no choice but to try to play him through the foul trouble.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Against lesser defenses, you can play the pace-race game.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And when the Timberwolves were turning it over, like early in the third period, the easy button was there.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But what the Heat don\u2019t have is an Anthony Edwards.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Not that many do.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Enjoy all those 140s you want.<\/p>\n
\u2013 But what matters is what is done against quality, playoff-level opposition.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Which is why Jaquez has stood as so essential.<\/p>\n
\u2013 And why Herro could and will help.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As soon as he again can toe the line.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Because Powell or bust has its limits.<\/p>\n
\u2013 As evidenced by this one.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Herro again out, the Heat again opened with a lineup of Powell, Wiggins, Adebayo, Kel\u2019el Ware and Davion Mitchell.<\/p>\n
\u2013 A lineup now 5-4.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Mitchell opened defensively against Edwards.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Not exactly a fair fight.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With his third 3-pointer Saturday, Edwards reached 1,200 for his career, the first player in NBA history to reach that mark before turning 25.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jaquez Jr. again was first off the Heat bench.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Kasparas Jakucionis and Nikola Jovic followed.<\/p>\n
\u2013 With Jakucionis remaining in the mix with Larsson missing a second consecutive game with an ankle sprain.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Dru Smith made it nine deep for the Heat.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Then, with Powell dealing with leg soreness, Simone Fontecchio was added to the mix early in the second period.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Ware extended his career-best run of games with multiple offensive rebounds to 16.
\u2013 Powell extended his streak of games scoring in double figures to 33, dating to last season with the Los Angeles Clippers, two games off the longest such run of his career.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said before the game that he sees nothing wrong with the notion of Jaquez as an early frontrunner for Sixth Man of the Year.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cI would love to see him get that award, and I think he\u2019s deserving of it,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cHe just has to continue to play at this level. He\u2019s impacting winning for us, so I think that\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 And then Jaquez was lost with that ankle sprain.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Spoelstra also spoke pregame of Jovic\u2019s ability to inject pace when he enters.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cI think that\u2019s naturally his style. So I think it\u2019s an overall style that fits his skill set,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cWe want him to put his foot to the pedal. He\u2019s great when he has the ball in his hands. (He\u2019s great with his pitch ahead. His vision is terrific.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jovic had his moments again.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Timberwolves coach Chris Finch had ample praise going in for the Heat\u2019s zone defense.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u201cI mean, they do a great job with it,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have done it for years. It\u2019s often bothered us. They\u2019re really good and active out front. They cover a lot of ground with their guys up front. They kind of corral you into spaces. They cut off passing angles, and their activity is just high level.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 And then Naz Reid broke the zone.<\/p>\n
\u2013 A legitimate Heat killer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 Observations and other notes of interest from Saturday night\u2019s 125-115 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves: \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105018,"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-105017","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\/105017","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=105017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}