March is not when an NBA team wants to get creative with its losses.<\/p>\n
And yet here stand the Miami Heat, staggered by a four-game losing streak that now includes Saturday night\u2019s 123-122\u00a0 loss to the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center.<\/p>\n
Last Saturday, an awful start led to a home loss to the Orlando Magic.<\/p>\n
Tuesday night, blitzed in the fourth quarter by the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n
Thursday night, done in by 60 points from the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 Luka Doncic.<\/p>\n
And this time within a tick of victory before Houston\u2019s Amen Thompson, the Fort Lauderdale Pine Crest product, scored on a putback winning basket with two-tenths of a second to play.<\/p>\n
So no, not good, not good at all.<\/p>\n
Instead of pushing their way out of the play-in race, now in jeopardy of falling to the bottom of that second-tier race.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just think the karma of the game, that we\u2019ll find a way to to walk out of here with a win,\u201d Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, \u201d And we just missed.\u201d<\/p>\n
This time, not even 32 points and a career-high 21 rebounds from center Bam Adebayo \u2014 the first 30-20 of his career \u2014 were enough, nor were 25 points from Tyler Herro, 19 from Pelle Larsson and 19 from Simone Fontecchio as the Heat played in the injury absences of Norman Powell, Andrew Wiggins and Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/p>\n
Instead, the night belonged to Thompson and Rockets forward Kevin Durant, who scored 27 points and in the process passed Michael Jordan for fifth on the NBA all-time scoring list.<\/p>\n
And it doesn\u2019t get any easier for Spoelstra\u2019s team, with Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs up next, on Monday night at Kaseya Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going through a little bit of pain right now, and that\u2019s going to steel us,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to make us better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five Degrees of Heat from Saturday\u00a0 night\u2019s game:<\/p>\n
1. Game flow: The Heat went up 12 early but trailed 32-29 at the end of the opening period and then 64-63 at halftime.<\/p>\n
Adebayo and Herro then continued to roll in the third period, which ended with the Heat up 96-87, the Heat ending the period on an 8-0 roll.<\/p>\n
From there, what grew into an 11-point Heat lead was followed by a 15-0 Rockets surge to a 106-102 Houston lead.<\/p>\n
The Heat fought back within 119-118 with 26.8 seconds to play on a 3-pointer from Fontecchio and a basket from Larsson.<\/p>\n
Eventually, the Heat stood down 121-118 with 12.7, calling time.<\/p>\n
The Rockets then intentionally fouled Adebayo with 8.6 seconds to play, with Adebayo making both free throws to make it a one-point game.<\/p>\n
Then, after\u00a0 a Heat steal on the Rockets\u2019 ensuing inbound play, Fontecchio scored on a Houston goaltend for a 122-121 Heat lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe showed great grit throughout that fourth quarter to be able to hang in there and then take that one point lead,\u201d Spoelstra said.<\/p>\n
But it was not over, with the Heat swarming Durant into a miss, only to see Thompson sneak in for his putback for his 23rd and 24th points, the final buzzer then sounding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just need to finish the possession,\u201d Fontecchio said.<\/p>\n
2. Alternate means: Powell was sidelined by calf tightness after a three-game return from seven games off due to a groin strain, and Wiggins missed his eighth consecutive game with a toe issues. Jaquez also sat his second in a row due to hip tightness, so\u00a0 Spoelstra again had to spin his wheel of lineups.<\/p>\n
This time it landed on Adebayo, Herro, Larsson, Fontecchio and Davion Mitchell.<\/p>\n
The lineup lost its only previous start.<\/p>\n
It was the seventh start of the season for Fontecchio, who had been on the injury report earlier in the day due to back spasms. He got off to a solid start, with 10 first-quarter points, closing 5-of-9 on 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was really good tonight,\u201d Spoelstra said of Fontecchio.<\/p>\n
Fontecchio credited his shooting success to playing off Adebayo and Herro.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey get a lot of pressure,\u201d he said, \u201cso they do a very good job just letting it go and playing the advantage also for the other guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. And so . . .: The injuries and absences returned a familiar face to the rotation, with Nikola Jovic playing as 10th man, his first appearance in 14 games, since he last played in the Feb. 20 road victory over the Atlanta Hawks.<\/p>\n
Jovic had missed 11 games due to lower-back injury management, then held out by coach\u2019s decision in his first two games cleared to return.<\/p>\n
Jovic showed his rust, going\u00a0 0-for-3 in his lone four-minute stint.<\/p>\n
Also lacking trust was backup center Kel\u2019el Ware, who initially was limited to a single four-minute first-half stint, going scoreless.<\/p>\n
Ware then returned only for the final play, when the Rockets won it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe missed a block out,\u201d Spoelstra said of what appeared to be a moment of truth for Ware, \u201cand Thompson made a heck of a play.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. Adebayo again: Adebayo already had a double-double when he dunked with 5:41 left in the second period, securing his 10th rebound on that sequence.<\/p>\n
It was Adebayo\u2019s 22nd double-double of the season and second first-half double-double this season.<\/p>\n
He was up to 20 points and 13 rebounds by the intermission, by that stage already extending his streak of games with at least 20 points to a career-best 11. His previous longest such streak was 11 in a row in November 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe brought that competitive will tonight,\u201d Spoelstra said, with Adebayo going 45 of the 48 minutes, \u201cand that\u2019s why it was nearly impossible for me to take him out of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the third 20-rebound game of Adebayo\u2019s career.<\/p>\n
But all Adebayo was thinking about afterward was a road now made even tougher to get out of the play-in bracket.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, we\u2019re fighting. We know what we\u2019re trying to get out of,\u201d he said of his now-ninth-place team. \u201cThose games are devastating, but we still have a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
5. Durant watch: Durant entered 26 points from passing Jordan for fifth place on the NBA\u2019s all-time scoring list, entering behind all-time scoring leader LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant and Jordan.<\/p>\n
Spoelstra, who coached Durant as a Team USA assistant during the 2024 Paris Olympics, said he continues to marvel at the 37-year-old veteran.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s timeless,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cHe really is. He\u2019s just been exceptionally consistent in what he does. I think he would be a great example for young players coming into the league to study how he prepares, works at his craft.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can be 60 years old and he can get 25 in an NBA game. He\u2019s always going to be able to get to his spots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the milestone, Adebayo, Durant\u2019s Olympic teammate, said, \u201cHe deserves it. Congratulations to him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March is not when an NBA team wants to get creative with its losses. And yet here stand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,3607,4852,3080,154],"class_list":["post-215009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}