The Miami Heat had several chances to put away the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday night. In what turned out to be a game of runs for both teams, Miami was on the wrong end of a fourth quarter collapse that put the game out of reach in the final minutes.
The Bulls secured the 133-124 win, spearheaded by their dominant 39-21 advantage in that last period.
It was a strong night offensively for the Heat, but too many defensive lapses and costly turnovers wound up costing them. They shot much better than the box score shows, although a cold stretch with the game on the line made it look worse. Miami finished the night going 48% from the field and 39% from 3-point range.
But the Bulls never took their foot off the gas from start to finish, as they totaled a strong 53% shooting and 46% from deep on the night. They were led by the offensive play of Josh Giddey, Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu. Giddey and White finished with 24 and 22 points, respectively, along with 7 assists each.
However, it was their rookie Matas Buzelis who brought the real spark to their rotation. He added 24 points in 31 minutes off the bench while going a perfect 10 of 10 from the field.
For the Heat, the frontcourt duo of Bam Adebayo and Kel’el Ware had their imprints on the game early. Adebayo tied for a team-high of 23 points and 8 rebounds on 10 of 17 shooting, and stepped up again in the clutch for some much needed buckets in the fourth. He had the midrange going all night and continued his recent strong stretch of play.
Ware was the story of the entire first half, although cooled off a bit. He wasn’t getting as many looks following halftime but still totaled a 17 points and 12 rebounds double-double with efficient 8 of 12 shooting overall.
It has been a rough few games for newly named All-Star Tyler Herro, who has seen his efficiency drop a bit as of late. Despite the strong playmaking in the game, he was sloppy with the basketball against the Bulls— committing some costly turnovers.
Miami got solid bench contributions led by Nikola Jovic’s 20 points on 70% shooting. However, Terry Rozier struggles have quickly returned following a solid outing in San Antonio over the weekend. He shot just 2 of 12 in his 29 minutes, and questionably stayed in the game for the Heat with their closing lineup despite his poor shooting night.
The Bulls loss dropped them back to an even .500 mark once again at a 24-24 record, and dipped back to the East’s seventh seed. They had a golden opportunity to come within reach of fifth in the conference, but instead their inconsistency continues as everyone waits for potential trade deadline roster reinforcements.
The Heat will have a chance to respond quickly with the second night of a road back-to-back versus the Philadelphia 76ers.
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The Philly game, even without Embiid, should be telling. The game last night exposed the problems with the Heat’s line-up, that only shows up in certain games. What I delicately refer to as Pat’s social experiment is a roster full of a redundancy of skillsets, where the scoring skills are varied but the limitations are similar. The other way to put it nicely is there is a lack of two way players. How it hurts us is we don’t have enough players who can find their own shot. It hurts us defensively in that we always have to double so much that the threes we give up are often wide open. The other way it hurts on defense is several of our defenders can be powered right thru. It often shows up more in the fourth quarter where the teams with more two way players can lock down on us. We also have trouble bringing the ball up and committing turnovers due to lack of a true point guard.
I admire Pat for his stance as I think he is addressing some incongruencies in the expectations and treatments of players. This social experiment, which is too much an outlier in today’s NBA to be considered mere coincidence, has been taken a bit too far. This roster needs some revamping, although not a complete reset, with perhaps at least two to three more two way players, players with more varied skillsets, particularly on defense. Let’s hope we get someone who can start moving us in that direction from the Jimmy trade.
OUCH!!! did not follow the last half. was hopeful it was a w…but ouch!