MIAMI \u2013 The NBA\u2019s two fastest teams as measured by pace not only were off to the races on Saturday night at Kaseya Center, but in a race that went to the wire.<\/p>\n
In many ways, it was as much a series of sprints, in the form of surges by each team, as a race of constant pace, with the Miami Heat entering No. 1 in that category and the Portland Trail Blazers at No. 2.<\/p>\n
So down the stretch they came, the Heat again attempting to conjure a path to victory while playing in the injury absences of leading men Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Erik Spoelstra\u2019s team found a way, with late scores by Jaime Jaquez Jr., Norman Powell and Andrew Wiggins helping close out the 136-131 victory that lifted the record to 6-4.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously our guys are getting pretty comfortable with it,\u201d Spoelstra said of the whole new Heat world of playing at pace. \u201cI\u2019m not putting the brakes on anybody who is trying to attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nikola Jovic led the Heat with a career-high 29 points, with Powell adding 22, Pelle Larsson 16, Wiggins 15 and Jaquez closing with 14 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an offense where it can be anybody\u2019s night.\u201d Jaquez said. \u201cTonight, it was Niko.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Jovic, the style made the game \u2013 and made his night.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see the way it makes everybody look better,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an easy way to play basketball. And I think it suits us really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deni Avdija led the Blazers with 33 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth teams were attacking,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cThis was a helluva basketball game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Heat next play consecutive home games against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday and Wednesday nights.<\/p>\n
Five Degrees of Heat from Saturday night\u2019s game:<\/p>\n
1. Game flow: The Blazers led 30-27 at the end of the first period, before the Heat moved to a 72-65 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
The Heat then went up 12 in the third period, before the Blazers closed within 100-97 entering the fourth.<\/p>\n
It all led to a 119-119 with 4:45 to play, as Powell began to warm up with his scoring and then another tie at 123-123 with 3:25 to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a lot of high-level basketball going back and forth,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cWe had to make a lot of plays there at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later, a 3-point play by Jaquez put the Heat up 127-125, with a Wiggins 3-pointer making it 132-127 with 1:32 to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWiggs continues to be a big-moments guy for us,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cIt was who would blink first.\u201d<\/p>\n
2. Abject opposite: Friday night, the Heat practically were a can\u2019t-miss proposition in the first quarter, converting their first six shots against the Hornets and rolling to a franchise-record 53 first-quarter points.<\/p>\n
This time, the Heat opened 1 of 15 from the field, their second conversion not coming until Pelle Larsson made a driving floater with 7:05 left in the opening period.<\/p>\n
That had the Heat with an early 12-point deficit and playing from behind, something never the case a night earlier against the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust to start, I thought we were sluggish, all of us, running in the mud,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n
The Heat recovered from that 1-of-15 start to close the opening quarter 10 of 27.<\/p>\n
The Heat entered averaging a league-leading 36.6 points in first quarters.<\/p>\n
3. Buying time: It almost has gotten to the point where the Heat merely are buying time until the reserves can enter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of our thing,\u201d Jaquez said. \u201cWe want to take pride to bring the energy boost for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Saturday night\u2019s case, the Heat were +23 with Jovic on the court in the first half.<\/p>\n
And each time Jaquez entered, good things happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cJaime at 3 o\u2019clock was not cleared to play,\u201d Spoelstra said of the ankle sprain Jaquez sustained a night earlier in the victory over the Hornets. \u201cHe gave us everything he had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Factor in Dru Smith and Jovic (see below) and the possibilities have been on display all season.<\/p>\n
And needed \u2013 as Saturday night\u2019s start showed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have depth,\u201d Spoelstra said, \u201cand that\u2019s something we want to lean into.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. Speaking of: Jovic was at his energetic best in a pace that played to his strength, as if straight out of EuroBasket.<\/p>\n
For as much of a spark as Jaquez provided with his energy, it was Jovic who took care of the scoring, including draining 3-pointers when there wasn\u2019t much in that regard from the starters.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy teammates got me going,\u201d Jovic said.<\/p>\n
Jovic closed 10 of 16 from the field, including 3 of 7 on 3-pointers, along with nine rebounds and seven assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like his energy. I like his intent. He was assertive, aggressive on both sides of the court,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cYou can choose to float or you can impose your will. I just like the assertiveness tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
5. Dru, too:\u00a0 Earlier, Smith helped turn the game with his opening stint that included 4-of-4\u00a0 shooting from the field and four rebounds, including the basket that gave the Heat their first lead of the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cDru comes in,\u201d Powell said, \u201cand just has a nose for the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Based on Smith\u2019s play, it seems unlikely that first-round pick Kasparas Jakucionis, now back from his preseason groin strain, will be seeing rotation minutes anytime soon.<\/p>\n
As for Smith, he has made a case for keeping his rotation role even when Tyler Herro makes his expected return later this month from September ankle surgery.<\/p>\n
Smith finished with 13 points, six assists and five rebounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was all over the place, so impactful,\u201d Spoelstra said.<\/p>\n
Smith (four) and Davion Mitchell (five) combined for nine steals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2013 The NBA\u2019s two fastest teams as measured by pace not only were off to the races…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40022,"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-40021","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\/40021","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=40021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}