Not all of them are pretty, or clean basketball for a full 48 minutes, like we often say–but the Miami Heat escaped Friday with a 121-111 win over the Toronto Raptors Friday evening inside Kaseya Center.
Miami began shooting just 2-of-20 from 3-point range and had just 20 points in the first quarter. It shot themselves back into it, knocking down a season-high 21 3s–making 19 of their last 34 3-point attempts. Eight players canned at least two triples, including two–Tyler Herro and Terry Rozier–with four apiece.
Jimmy Butler led with a game-high 26 points on 8-of-14 shooting and 2-of-4 from 3-point range, adding six assists and two seals. Herro had 23 points on 8-of-18 from the floor, while Jaime Jaquez Jr. had arguably his best game of the season, tallying 15 points with four rebounds and three dimes in 18 minutes off the bench.
Bam Adebayo became one of three Heat players all-time with 200 career double-doubles with the Heat–the other two being Rony Seikaly and Alonzo Mourning. Though he recorded his 8th career triple-double in Friday’s winning effort, finishing with 14 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. Adebayo was able to corral his 10th rebound as time expired at the end of regulation, becoming the second Heat player ever (Jimmy Butler, Lebron James) with at least eight career triple-doubles.
RJ Barrett led the Raptors with 25 points on 10-of-18 shooting, hauling down six rebounds with seven assists. Jakob Poeltl posted a 24-point, 10-rebound double-double; Scottie Barnes notched a triple-double of his own, tallying 24 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.
Friday’s win puts Miami at one game above .500 (9-8) for the third time all season–the first since Nov. 3. Toronto, meanwhile, drops to a lowly 5-15.
The Heat were already out of the in-season tournament before Friday’s game began, so the result was inconsequential to them possibly advancing to the knockout stage. Though they finish group stage play 2-2 with a plus-20 point differential, currently the fifth-best differential in the East at the time of this publishing.
Miami has yet to win three straight all season, but will look to do so against the Raptors again on Sunday inside Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Canada.
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So I guess the plan is to hover around .500 and try to make a push at the end of the season?
Unless Butler is out or otherwise not 100%..then it will be a repeat of last season, at best.
At minimum, Spo should play Ware and Love with the second unit. He can alternate playing them with Bam on the first unit. They got outrebounded again last night (46-33)! The team CAN be competitive if they are winning the rebounding battle every night. They CAN’T if they are getting their asses handed to them. “Small Ball” was good while it lasted, but it’s day has come and gone.
It is time for Riley and Spo to accept reality. Ware, Bam, Herro, Jaquez, Larsson, Johnson, Christopher, Stevens and Smith have shown us glimpses of the future. Together they can form a strong nucleus of a team when you include any young assets and draft picks Miami can gather by trading players such as Butler, Robinson, Rozier and others. There is no better time to begin transitioning to that future than now!
I have a concern with Stevens, who happened to have 18 assists Friday night! He can be poached by any team. I hope that doesn’t happen. And another big night for Keshad with 32/11. Christopher with 37.
Maybe the Heat can work a buyout with a player like Richardson or Bryant (who are both out of the rotation) and bring in Keshad Johnson or Josh Christopher up to the big team on a minimum contract and elevate Stevens to a two-way contract. I hope someone in the front office is thinking that way or I guarantee you another team will steal Stevens, sooner than later!!! A player like Richardson would probably take 50% buyout knowing he can find another team like the Lakers willing to pick him up. He would actually make a couple of dollars on that deal.
Per NBA: The minimum salary for an undrafted rookie in the NBA for the 2024-25 season is a little over $1 million. However, undrafted free agents are more likely to be signed to two-way deals, which are worth around $580,000. Two-way deals allow teams to play players on their G League team or bring them up to the NBA roster for a limited number of days.
small ball was good when jim was a ss.if u are overly talented size doesnt matter as much,but our talent has been diminished due to father time.bam is the proto typical pf body wise he needs to figure out how a 4 plays with a true center i would think a top 15 coach could make that happen or maybe not.if hh was overly talented id say leave ware with second unit but he isnt.a very talented player.on good teams bost nyk cleve hed be lucky to get much pt at all.id rather see ware play with bam over hh is what it comes down to
The only chance to maybe be special with this group is to try the bam ware duo together.what the f u got to lose spobot.keep this current sht up looking at 6th to play in team with an early playoff exit.the dense and rebounding u would get would offset any offensive spacing bs issues.what the f u got to lose and just maybe that will work
I agree. Not much to lose. Not like it’s throwing too much at Ware too soon. He can handle it. And, it’s not like Love is so much better at this point in Love’s career. ( I will make an aside here to say sometimes we forget that Love was an all star, a solid A player at the height of his career). And it’s not like the first seventeen games have made us look like world beaters. It’s true to me also, what have we got to lose?
Of course Spo is infinitely smarter than us on this subject.
I don’t see that working, since neither one of them can shoot. You can’t have a modern NBA team with two non-shooters in your starting lineup. Bam is certainly making some progress in that direction, but it will be months, if not years, before Bam is a reliable outside shooter. That’s why Jovic and K-Love are still getting minutes.
jovic is out of rotation btw.ok so supposedly they cant shoot that will be off setted by a no runs to the rim and no second chance pts i/ll take that extra d and rebounding any day.its not like hh k love and shnozic are karl malones of the world.
It seems that rotations are set. Those rotations makes sense, and it seems most important players seems comfortable there. The defense is solid, and keep team into contention despite bad offense.
Still, I don’t see a lot of upside for team organized like that.
Not ideal, but I ll take it.
It’s hard to get too excited about the Heat’s wins, considering that of their 9 wins, only one has been against a winning team, (the Mavericks who were without Luka). They have lost to four winning teams (Orlando, Knicks, Suns and Nuggets), one .500 team (Milwaukee) and three losing teams (Kings, Pistons and Pacers).
After Sunday’s game against Toronto, the next four games will be against winning teams (Boston, Lakers, Phoenix and Cleveland). If the Miami beats Toronto and wins one of the following four games, the team will be 11-11. If Miami only wins one of it’s next five games, the team will be 10-12.
At what point will the light go on for Riley that this team, as he has constructed it, is not a viable contender? The trade deadline (February 6, 2025) is only 5.5 weeks away. It will interesting to see if Pat pulls a rabbit (or two) out of his hat in the next few weeks or if he decides to “let it ride” with the team’s current personnel.
I agree. We were fortunate to play a reasonably easy schedule early. And those next four games after Toronto will test us.
I sure hope we don’t let it ride. That will be what I used to refer to as a drag. The thing is, if healthy, we are a medium team, and you could make a case to go either way, build up or look to the future.
The trade deadline is pretty far away still, but we will probably have to be patient and be in limbo until then. Hopefully, the time will be well spent plotting out the Heat’s next move.
Until then, we can expect more of the same, beating the bad, losing to the good, and that’s if we remain healthy. A couple injuries will put us decidedly nearer the bottom than the top. But, it’s not like there is any mystery anymore,,we know what we have and where we stand now.
let it ride a bto fan 30?one of my favs
Love them. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet and Taking Care of Business, amongst my favorites.
And American Woman and These Eyes amongst others from their former group, Guess Who.
burton cummings didnt play with bto
aint seen nothing yet tcb too commercial 30 they got lots of great tunes that dont get played every 5 minutes
Oops, make that 9.5 weeks not 5.5.
trade for ware hes avail