For the second straight preseason game, it took until the game’s final possession for the outcome to be decided for the Miami Heat. Instead of losing, however, the Heat notched a 101-99 win in their home preseason opener to the New Orleans Pelicans.
A total of 16 Heat players saw the floor, with no starter seeing more than 17 minutes. We got a full glimpse of the Terry Rozier, Tyler Herro, Jimmy Butler, Nikola Jovic and Bam Adebayo lineup–which has never seen a single minute together up until Sunday.
Herro and Rozier led with 12 and 11 points, respectively. Herro shot 4-of-9 from the floor with four rebounds, three assists and two steals; Rozier made five of his nine attempts with a pair of assists and one steal.
The lineup jelled well together, all things considered–generating promising half-court looks while looking fluid in transition. There were times where it wasn’t completely connected offensively or defensively, though they were able to build a 12-point advantage with 2:31 left in the first half after it had a mixed bag of results in the first half
The starters only played the first half. Duncan Robinson led the second unit with 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting, including 2-of-4 from 3-point range. Thomas Bryant had nine points on 4-of-5 shooting; four other players had at least six in small sample sizes.
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I just saw the highlights on YouTube. The team looked good in the first half but not so good in second. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get a glimpse of the starters playing together more minutes against San Antonio and Memphis. I’m looking forward to seeing Ware and Bam going head to head with Wemby and Edey. Bam is too short to be effective against either one. The sooner Ware is assimilated into the starting unit and Bam is moved to power forward…the better.