After that scuffle that led to ejections in a Miami Heat win against the New Orleans Pelicans a few weeks back, the Pelicans got their revenge. Jimmy Butler was firm in his postgame quote weeks ago where he stated the Heat are “the better team” and that they will “beat them” again next time. At the time of that quote, Miami won eight straight games against the Pelicans.
However, last night showed another awful loss, getting dismantled by this Pelicans squad 111-88 on the Heat’s home court. Miami now only has a 17-15 record inside the Kaseya Center this season. They drop to a 38-32 overall record and fumble another chance of getting out of the play-in bracket. Heat remained in the seventh seed said thankfully to another Philadelphia 76ers loss, but now are separated with the Indiana Pacers even more to attain that sixth seed. They are 1.5 games behind the Pacers now.
With just 12 games remaining for this regular season, the Heat are simply running out of time. They are running out of time for not only a solid Eastern Conference seeding, but to get healthy, too. Miami was without the services of Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson and Kevin Love again; the team’s top three floor spacers and long range shooters.
Miami got out to an early 14-2 lead in the first quarter last night, but it was all New Orleans from that point on. The Pelicans had a 65-46 edge in the second half of the game. The most concerning part of this is that the Pelicans pulled off this dominant performance even with their best player Zion Williamson not making much of an impact offensively. Williamson only had 4 points on 2/7 shooting.
CJ McCollum lit it up for New Orleans, dropping a 30 piece on 12/21 shooting and 6/12 from deep to go along with 7 assists and 5 rebounds. Other than McCollum, it was an all around team effort from their guys. Pelicans shot 51% from the field compared to the Heat’s 36%, and 50% from 3-point range compared to the Heat’s awful 28%.
Heat FG shooting vs Pelicans:
5/12 — Butler
0/8 — Martin
1/7 — Jaquez
2-7 — Mills
2-7 — Wright
0/3 — HighsmithWOOF.
— 𝙃𝙀𝘼𝙏 𝙉𝘼𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉 (@HeatvsHaters) March 23, 2024
Miami did a good job containing the basketball, limiting themselves to just 4 turnovers. But they got destroyed on the glass, losing the rebounding battle 56-34.
Jimmy Butler was the box score leader for the Heat with his 17 points, but the entire team just did not look themselves and struggled. It would have been nice to see much more shot attempts from Bam Adebayo, who was upgraded to available following his sore back that kept him out in Cleveland during the game prior. Adebayo had a 12/10 double-double but only attempted seven shots. He needs to be more assertive and aggressive looking for his shot.
It was even more of a notable struggle with Miami’s role players. Caleb Martin and Jaime Jaquez Jr combined to shoot 1/15 from the field off the bench. Martin is always an asset defensively that makes his presence known in point of attack defense and causing havoc in passing lanes, but when Jaquez Jr isn’t shooting well he doesn’t have any other parts of his game yet that can supplement that.
He can absolutely hold his own on defense, but it was the shot and play making abilities that earned him a regular rotation spot. It has seemed like with Jaquez Jr, aside from his 20+ point performance in OKC a couple weeks back, he has not looked like the same player ever since that hamstring injury.
He started the season off on an elite pace for a rookie, with early statistical comparisons to even Dwyane Wade with the performances he was having. Unfortunately, he has looked like a shell of that player Heat fans witnessed to begin the year. Coach Erik Spoelstra only played Jaquez Jr for 14 minutes, benching him for the likes of Haywood Highsmith and even two-way player Cole Swider.
Swider was the only player to shoot well across the entire Heat roster last night. He went for 14 points off the bench on 5/7 shooting and 4/6 from three.
Patty Mills poor shooting also caused him to get benched, totaling only 12 minutes after he went 0/4 from deep himself. Mills is just 2/31 from 3-point range over this last stretch of games he has been playing. His veteran IQ brings a savy element, but the abysmal shooting makes him unplayable at this stage of his career.
Luckily for the Heat, Herro, Robinson and Love will be returning at some point. As long as this team can limp into the play-in at the very least, a healthy Heat roster should never be counted out during the postseason. Especially for a team that has proven that they are built for the playoffs.
Miami will look to bounce back on Sunday evening against the Cleveland Cavaliers again at home.
***
To check out our other content, click here.
Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Twitter/X here!
Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Instagram here!
“Until one of Herro and Robinson returns, many teams will continue to make sure Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler see multiple bodies in the paint whenever they look to attack and will crowd any screen action ran with Adebayo.
Unless the Heat can get a collective good shooting outing from a multitude of players or big performances from Butler and Adebayo, Miami is going to have to rely on getting easy buckets off of good defense and finding mismatches in transitions with their two best floor spacers out.”
https://allucanheat.com/posts/latest-miami-heat-loss-proves-importance-of-polarizing-duo?utm_campaign=FanSided+Daily&utm_source=FanSided+Daily&utm_medium=email&sc=e0273490fd355e2c28bdb25751d41af65a4dd80936ff00a80be9866c97887955
It’s been a sinking ship for awhile for those who truly know, somehow the Heat culture has kept this afloat. Hope is the only word at this stage to turn an anchor to a ballast.
Go Heat, Go!
And for those of you who do not “truly know “, stay tuned for more enlightenment 😀.
Let’s go Heat!!
Enlightenment comes in the playoffs. We hope.
Charge it to experience. Again. Have a team mtg. Players only mtg. Again. Its exhausting to watch them losing like that. Again. But we’re stuck with this kind of team and hope for the best still. You broke your promise Jimmy, maybe you can’t do it anymore including in the playoffs. Last ride already. Make it count. Make the most of it. Go Heat
Until/unless this team gets healthy, the remaining component parts are not going to fit well. Kind of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It doesn’t change the outcome.
What a disastrous loss yesterday, at least Philly lost. Time for another starting lineup change, throw patty to the bench, so delon can start. Offense was lackluster, we’re a bottom tier 3 pt shooting team without herro,dunc,love,and jrich. Bryant should get a few more minutes increased to his pt. At some point you gotta stop shooting 3s, if you’re bricking so many. Bam and Jimmy have to be more aggressive and set the tone from the jump and stop with the over passing.
13 for 47 from 3 is freaking ridiculous like why not go to the basket more then having a 3pt shootout. Pelicans killed us with that zone, caleb and Jaime was like 1 for 15. When your some of your key contributors ain’t providing scoring punch, that’s supposed to be where your step in and save the day. Bam and Jimmy failed , they need to take at least 18 shots a game going forward, STOP WITH THE BEING UNSELFISH BS , especially with all our injuries. This loss was a whole team failure… with the exception of Bryant and swiderman.
coach needs to hammer that into our two stars u need to shoot the fkn ball at least 20 times a game.ty does that every game
Ikr ,but they too unselfish, and now we all know herro takes so many shots.
fk unselfish its being basketball dum .your best players have to take the most shots.bams issue is between his ears.guy just doesnt have the killer mamba alpha a personality.must have been a follower his whole life.jimmy has mamba alpha a but father time maybe has stolen that aggressiveness away. tyler has mamba in him just aint good enough.we have a kobe type alpha player but that seems to be hidden for 75% of the game these days.it usually comes out in the 4th qtr only
The scary part is, that this NO team was without Ingram and Zion had a terrible game.
The real point difference last night should be closer to 40 points then 20.
I think Spo was outcoached last night. He couldn’t find solution for zone, and it seems that the wrong players were doing the wrong things all night. For example, Jovic as a driver is bad, but he can be volume shooter from distance.
Of course, he drives all second half.
And Martin.. no words.
Today is like a morning after a disaster. Have to pick up the pieces, move forward. Maybe even cast a perfunctory glance toward the future.
perfunctory hmm your def smarter than me 30
I wasn’t the one who invented th.type of commun.my ideas.very orig
is jimmy mad cause kyles gone? wonder if pat went to jim ask him how he would feel if we traded kyle.i would have done that and if jim said dont trade him pat shouldnt of traded him.team chermistry is big in sports something u cant measure but its a factor in a teams success
This team needs an enema.