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Heat fall to Pistons in heartbreaker 123-121

Heat Pistons
The Heat saw a win slip out of its hands down the stretch off an errant time-out call in what was an amazing night from Tyler Herro.

Miami struggled to score early with Kevin Love and Terry Rozier bricking the first four looks. The Heat actually didn’t score until the 7:39 mark when Jaime and the reserves broke the drought.

Really an embarrassing start for the Heat while the Pistons rattled off 10 straight. The Heat were thoroughly outclassed by Detroit until the end of the first, finally bringing energy on defense and chipping away at the  Piston’s lead. It’s worth pointing out that the offensive surge came from the reserves with the starters coming up lame. The Heat would put up their lowest scoring quarter so far this season.

Miami’s shot selection improved slightly but it didn’t matter as Malik Beasley took advantage of the porous defense. Bam wouldn’t score his first bucket until the 8:52 of the second quarter – an alarming aspect of this game and the season as a whole so far.

The Heat eventually found its groove posting a 12-2 run led by Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson. With Duncan and Herro operating flame throwers the Heat were suddenly within four. Bam even threw in a three to get the Heat within one, and scoring again on the next possession to steal the lead.

Despite its short surge the Heat would go into halftime down six.

Miami was better to start the second half getting contributions from Kevin Love, Haywood Highsmith and Tyler Herro. Spo would shift Miami back into a zone, but second chance buckets kept its effectiveness to a minimum. The Heat and Pistons were largely even for much of the quarter, but Jaime Jaquez Jr. was the difference maker towards the end of the quarter. Ware also put up some highlight plays, but the Heat still found itself down seven going into the fourth.

Miami was weak in the fourth quarter giving up rebound after rebound, letting Detroit score with ease and not doing enough on offense. The Pistons did not let up on offense keeping Miami out of reach despite its best efforts (and by that I mean mostly Herro’s efforts). However things changed with Tyler Herro hitting two clutch threes down the stretch to tie things up and send it to OT.

The Heat were different in OT delivering on big plays (see the Bam Slam and Duncan second chance bucket) but still making mistakes on defense. Still even with mistakes, Miami locked in getting the ball to Tyler in the right moment to hit what looked like a game winner. With 1.1 seconds left Miami botched a Pistons inbounds play, and Spo would call a time-out he didn’t have. The technical foul would put the game out of reach, stealing what should have been double overtime. A heartbreaker, that should have never been.

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Big_guy305

Spo been coaching too long to make a rookie mistake like that, 2 losses on spo this season so far. It’s sucks jovic got hurt, when he was starting to play good. With jovic out, ware should be getting 20 mins at least. Also i don’t understand why spo left Terry in so long, he played 40 minutes, and was horrendous. Jaquez played 25 minutes and did way better, at the very least Jaquez should of played all of that OT. But anyways I digress, on to the next game.

SunManFromDogBone

Great effort! I’m very proud of the guys for not giving up.

  • Herro is definitely the star of the team this year. He’s up to 24.9 ppg. He’s matured into an all star caliber player.
  • Heat outrebounded again 56-43.
  • Bam is good but no longer excellent.
  • Butler is fading and expendable for the right price.
  • Rozier has regressed.
  • Jaquez playing better, especially on the boards.
  • Burks shooting 50.0 FG% and 64.3 #PT% and not playing? WTF?
  • WTF was Spo thinking? Instead of going to double OT Heat got schlonged.
  • Why does Spo sit players like Burks who are doing well for no good reason.
  • Highsmith took 5 shots and made 3, 1-2 from 3 pt range. That’s not enough.
Reality Czech

Agree 10-10

Bout30man

Agree also. Why does Spo do that? I always attributed it to a simple he knows a lot better than I, but sometimes it makes you wonder.
One more thing on that subject…. How much can a coach overcome having a shortage of talent? I am one to think that in basketball, not that much. Just my opinion, but I think that in the nba, a coach impacts the outcome ten percent, and talent impacts the outcome 90%. I believe a coach impacts more in the nfl. Just throwing that out there.

Last edited 18 days ago by Bout30man
vagibugi

In basketball well led team with less talented players knowing their roles and playing together to their strengths can beat more talented teams. But they need a good coach.

In NBA good teams can win games, but only good and talented teams can win titles.

Take a look at Bucks. Rivers is a bad coach. Giannis has to score 60, to get a win.
I bet, Spo with Giannis an Lillard in Heat team without Bam and Butler would win a title.

SunManFromDogBone

Not one less talented team has won an NBA championship in recent memory. Definitely not Boston, Denver, Golden State, Milwaukee or Lakers.

Miami is definitely NOT a talented team. The Heat’s overachievements of the past few years don’t change that. If we honestly believe this team is built to compete with the NBA’s top tier teams, we are gaslighting ourselves and blowing smoke up our own a _ _ es.

It’s time to be realistic about the present and the future. Miami is currently on a trajectory to be a play-in team. The only thing that will change that is if trades are made. Either Miami trades for better players and tries to compete or has a fire sale (trading older veterans for young talent and draft picks) in order to position itself for a fast track retooling/rebuilding process.

Hopefully, Riley comes to that realization sooner than later. Meanwhile, I will continue to watch the games, cheer on the team, enjoy watching the young guys develop and hope for the best.

GO HEAT!!!

vagibugi

Miami is not talented team true, but that team doenst have top tier talent from Lebron, Bosh and premium Wade era. But they were twice in NBA finals and several times in east finals in past 10 years.

Top players in that era were Goran, Butler and Bam. Butler a borderline top 10 player at his best, the other two top 30 at their best.

Heat are a bunch of outcasts , which often overachieved.

SunManFromDogBone

Miami was able to fight and claw it’s way into the Finals twice. However, the team realistically was not constructed to compete with the NBA’s top tier teams.

I loved Goran. He was the reason I ditched the Suns and started following the Heat. But Goran was never a top 30 player. You talk about a ragtag group of outcasts who overachieved, the 2013-2014 Suns finished 48-34* with Dragic as their best player. The West was so strong that year, Phoenix did not make the playoffs.

  • That is a better record than Miami has had in 7 of the past 8 seasons.
vagibugi

Disagree.

Goran was at his best in Phoenix, when he was named in third team in the league (but not an all star). At that tam was definitely top 30 player in the league.

He wasn’t top 30 player in the league when playing in Miami, despite being an all star.

Reality Czech

I think it is more perception than reality. The big difference to me is that in football, there is a distinct pause after every play where you can see the interaction between player/quarterback and coach. In basketball (and hockey in a way), the game is so fast that the coach has to run back and forth using hand signals. The only time you see a play drawn up in bb is during a time out. Even though quarterbacks have the plays on their wrists, you see the interaction with the sideline.
But, bottom line in any sport is if the players don’t execute the play, it fails, no matter what the coach signals. And, yes, you need the talent to get to the next level no matter how good the coach is.

SunManFromDogBone

I agree. See my comments above.

SunManFromDogBone

I think you are right. Mistakes by NBA coaches are so much more glaring when they have such a small margin for error. One screw up and the whole world sees it and there is no room for recovery. Spo is human. Shit happens.

The problem with the Heat is there are no consistent talented performers this year (other than Herro). So for Spo, it is a crapshoot. Which one of his role players is due for a big night? If he guesses wrong, the scoring, defense or both suffer.

One thing I would like to see, until Spo decides to start Ware and Bam together, is to have Highsmith at PF playing the old Tucker/Crowder role and Jaquez starting in the Butler role. It can’t hurt. Jaquez is a good ball handler/playmaker, an aggressive rebounder and not afraid to attack the paint. Maybe Highsmith can learn something from him. Highsmith is very good defensively and Jaquez is better than average.

vagibugi

Herro is an all star this year.
Bam still out of the sync.

vagibugi

WTF?

What was that?

Unbelievable!

Its like you got the candy and somebody steal it.

oregoner

Shoutout to Tyler. That dude has been so good this year. He’s easily been the best player on the Heat this season

Alien

The first 6:21 minutes of the game was a misconceived stratrgy of live by the 3 or die by the 3. The Heat took 5 unsuccessful 3 points attempts and had the score at 0-10 when Spo called the first time out. Before then, you can see the obvious effort of the Heat trying to find a perimeter shooter to shoot the 3. Even when a guy was open to take a mid range J or go to the rim, he was looking to pass to the perimeter. I was more perplexed that the Piston players did not intercept any of those outward bound passes by the Heat players to the perimeter. Considering that it was done by all 5 starters within this period, it was obvious that it was Spo’s strategy going into the game. The guys could at least drive to the rim and start picking up fouls on the Piston defenders in the paint. Thank fully this all changed after the time out called by Spo at the 7:39 minute mark when the 2nd unit came in and mixed things up.However, it seemed that those sour 6:21 minutes
for the Heat had boosted the confidence of the Piston players and perhaps bouyed them to victory. Spo, please take my advice if you are reading this. The Heat is not yet an excellent 3 point shooting team, so please, please,please do not repeat this live by the 3 or die by it strategy as orchestrated in the first 6:21 minutes of this game, if you want to achieve a meaningfull season going forward.
Go Heat, Go!

InsuranceMan

I wasn’t even mad lol I just laughed

Bout30man

That’s sort of my reasoning. Only along for the ride this year. Keeping my expectations in check along with my emotions. From that perspective it was an entertaining game.

InsuranceMan

Same philosophy here

vagibugi

I was mad for a minute or two.
But the game was lost before wild Herros minutes.

Starting line up in first half was totally helpless. It was painful to watch.

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