(Mandatory credit: Getty Images)
It’s been a while since the Miami Heat have earned a statement win, but they did just that on Saturday.
They handed the now 37-22 visiting Houston Rockets a 115-105 loss inside Kaseya Center, spoiling Kevin Durant’s 32-point outing. The victory improves Miami’s record to 32-29 overall, closing the playoff seeding gap to .5 games behind the seventh seed and 2.0 games behind the sixth seed to avoid the play-in entirely.
This matchup featured an intense and competitive start from the opening tip. Tyler Herro and Durant got into a heated exchange just halfway through the first quarter. The defensive effort from both teams was physical throughout, leading to a tight back and forth game of runs up until the final minutes. Ultimately, the Heat’s 64-53 second half edge was enough to close out Houston down the stretch.
Bam Adebayo led Miami with another elite two-way performance, featuring a 24 points, 11 rebounds double-double on an efficient 9 of 17 shooting overall and 3 of 5 from 3-point range. The Heat outscored the Rockets by 16 points in Adebayo’s 35 minutes— by far the best plus/minus on the team.
The captain received some help from Herro’s 18 points and Pelle Larsson’s 20 points. Those two combined to shoot 14 of 24 from the field. Miami also got strong minutes out of Andrew Wiggins, Kel’el Ware and Jaime Jaquez Jr., with seven players in total finishing with double-digits. Ware shined off the bench with a 13 points and 15 boards double-double of his own, and even earned closing minutes alongside Adebayo to finish the game.
For the Rockets, Durant got 20 points worth of help from Amen Thompson, but not much elsewhere. Star big man Alperen Sengun was limited with foul trouble, totaling just 13 points. As a team, Houston was held to just 43% shooting and 25% from deep compared to Miami’s 50% and 35%, respectively.
The Heat will look to build off a strong win as they continue their homestand against the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday.
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I have a question.
Why this team doesn’t play like that every night?
Engaged, with force.
Maybe is after all just a matter of will playing hard every night to Heat be a better team.
bam and wiggy are playing as good as theyve ever played .for a good stretch here.wares so dam long just his length makes a diff.jjj is just about unstoppable in the paint these 4 men need the most minutes every night..i do not think norm and tyler help winning nearly as much as the aforementioned.dru and dav give u very little o but both are really good defenders.i have no problem giving 10-15 mins to each but no more than that.u win with d herro and norm are not very good at that especially herro.so in conclusion our 4 best players bam ware wig jjj should be getting 30 35 mins a night anything less than that bad job coaching.in off season i would let norm tyler go in off season try to get younger and more athletic
They don’t win that game w/o Herro. 12 of his 18 points were in the paint. He has to be guarded way out to the 3 pt line, and then can collapse the defense with drives. He was setting up Tari Eason and Amen Thompson to think a pick was coming then was going right by them. Horrible defense from Houston as a team and not just Sengun who was the weakest link. Thompson is clearly not at full strength, was barely contesting on defense on some plays
Just watched game highlights on youtube. Very good game.
The frustrating part about being a Heat fan is seeing the potential of the team and then having to endure the inconsistency from one game to the next. If they only could gel and play consistently good basketball.
difference between the good teams and mediocre teams consistency.kelel getting almost 30 mins helped.not sure why fonzarella playing ahead of the gardner thats just dumbot being himself.what was he seeing in niko night after bad night that had to cost us a few games play the right fn people
did u see the mexican war on you tube navarrette sanchez wow watch it sm
sorry nunez i meant
Yup. It was great! Quite a bit of boxing on DAZN lately. PPV boxing events (like Garcia and Barrios) are free after a few days. Wife and I like UFC and BKB as well.
We watch football games too (Ravens primarily) but she also likes to watch games involving other physical (mostly Eastern) teams.
We watched the last couple of games of the World Series (Dodgers vs Blue Jays). Very exciting games.
We also like Netflix series. There are several very good ones. The English period piece ones are generally much better quality than American (plots, acting, casts, character development, directing, set designs, time period costumes, etc.).
Sheer will carried the game. Pretty solid focus & balanced effort. Game had playoff atmosphere.
Really good game from Ware, he was a presence on offensive glass. MIA +16 points in the paint – Jaquez, Herro, Bam, Ware, Larsson all in double figures in paint points. HOU was missing Jabari Smith Jr and had no interior defense, kind of amazing how open the lane was for Miami. Need to see them keep getting downhill against better defenses
That was a really encouraging win. There’s no denying it. We were missing an important piece, but we got a lot of contributors. Sometimes it seems like the incorrect usages of our players has held us back as much as any other reason. We made some smart decisions and found the more beneficial combinations several times tonight, got closer to getting optimal performance out of our talent than we sometimes do.
Yes, but let’s remember to keep it in perspective. Who knows? We may lose by 20 to the Nets next game. It’s been a schizophrenic season.
super fan come on rc we can get on a roll if dummy uses right guys.wait till cleve gets playoff james.detroits beatable.nyk beatable.with bam ware leading the way i give us a chance if this dum ass coach lets bam ware loose
You either get way too high or way too low. This was one good game after we had several stinkers. I would rather take one game at a time and assess as we go.
All true about not over-reacting. But, we saw things in this one game that made you wonder whether we could use our players more efficiently. But, from your perspective, perhaps it’s more that Houston has weaknesses we exposed on this one night that other good teams won’t have. Only time will tell.