It was not a lucky St. Patrick’s Day for the Miami Heat.
Down Bam Adebayo, the Heat’s defense collapsed in the second half, losing 136-106 to the Charlotte Hornets Tuesday night inside Spectrum Center.
The Hornets outscored the Heat 77-49 in the final period, the second-most points they’ve scored in a single half this season with the third-highest point-differential. Conversely, it was the largest Miami has been outscored by in a single half this season, with the 77 points being the largest it’s surrendered as well.
Charlotte’s 30-point blowout comes less than two weeks after the Heat took home a 128-120 victory in Charlotte. The story was much different for an Adebayo-less Heat, who shot just 40.4 percent from the floor and an abysmal 7-of-36 from 3-point range.
Led by LaMelo Ball, Coby White and Kon Knueppel, the Hornets went 17-of-42 from 3-point range en route to their most points scored since Jan. 10. Ball tallied 30 points and 13 assists on 11-of-22 shooting; White had 24 points on 8-of-15 shooting, while Knueppel finished with 22 points on 8-of-14 shooting.
It was an uninspiring night from the Heat, collectively. Tyler Herro tallied 20 points on 5-of-11 shooting; Norman Powell looked invisible for his second-straight game off injury, though he scored 17 points on 7-of-17 shooting.
Keshad Johnson was productive off the Heat bench in Bam Adebayo’s absence, tallying 15 points with five rebounds, three steals and one block. He was perhaps the Heat’s lone bright spot in a sea of darkness on Tuesday, with Miami dropping to 38-31 on the season, where it rests as the No. 7 seed.
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Some quick news heat plan on waiving scary terry before the playoffs .
lakers on b2b id be surprised if 41 year old lebron played he took a tough hit to elbow in 4th.lukas gotta be top 3 mvp,nobody in the nba can stop him. only chance we have was thanks to the schedule maker.ty mr silver and co.
I watched the game, as a lot of LAL games this season. Luka is in great shape lately as LBJ too.
The recipe for win is to limit Reaves and others, let Luka score 50, if he have to. I hope LBJ wont play. LAL don’t have bench.
Heat should have 10 point advantage in last 3-4 minutes. LAL is probably the best in the league closing games.
Not so good news – Toronto and Atlanta won. Slightly good news – Warriors lost again, now 10th in the west. They probably won’t go any lower as the teams behind them in the conference and the league have considerably worse records.
lebron used a term after the game he said competitive juice keeps me going .like that term.ware has very little .bams comp juice fluctuates alot.
cj kuminga new additions atl won like 11 in a row thats a gm trying to improve his team unlike ours
Between Atlanta, Orlando and Toronto, Miami has a very hard/tough road to hoe. The Heat will need to get very hot for the rest of the season to earn a playoff spot. Worse case scenario is probably a 9th place finish requiring two play-in wins to advance to the playoffs. Why does this scenario sound familiar?
it was ok when we had playoff jimmy whos our playoff guy now unfort dont have one.so like lots of nba teams need that guy.does anybody want to take their talents to south beach?does anybody want to take their gm talents to so beach?sm?
If Heat survive the play-in again, league should give them an incentive next season, if ever they fall in that situation again (oh pls no), giving the Heat an automatic #7 or #8 seed 😁😆
im not sure why vlad wasnt put on their big white guy if he was avail keshod was def to small another head scratcher by spobot.if he wasnt avail i wont scratch my cabeza
4 man lineup of Davion-Larsson-Wiggins-Bam is +15 in 291 minutes, that is the foundation for a winning defense. Last night two of those 4 were out and CHA went on their run in the 3Q with both Larsson and Mitchell on the bench.
Been really impressed with Jaquez and Jakucionas on defense also. Jakucionas looks like the 2nd best PG in the 2025 class after Dylan Harper. Coming into this year the idea was to look for players development as x-factors that could raise the Heat’s ceiling. Didn’t happen with Jovic and Ware but it did with Larsson and Jaquez.
Heat may have peaked with Bam’s big night both mentally & physically. Schedule not easy & Spo wants more but they could’ve hit their high note and shot their wad. Season done without Bam.
u take away teams 2 best players what do u expect.wiggy with that toe injury is worrisome.ive seen a toe injury ruin oj mcduffies career.in football it use to be called turf toe so they abolished artificial turf .rcs talking about big athletic players finally keshad freed from spogatory..u win nba games with cats like kj not herro ball.if wiggy is out for the rest of the year we have no shot.ive been so impressed with his play this year behind bam hes our second best player.i see no use for herro on this team with norm pelle jjj clearly better assets for the team.somebody needs to light a fire under ware he plays with no desperation .got lots of nice pieces a ss would def help the odds are not good of getting one unless greek comes here.i would give up any two players except both bam ware.u can have one but not both.to get a top 5 player still in his prime take two preferably bam herro or norm.
That was ugly. Props to Johnson for his game, that was the second best game in his life.
Both Herro and Powell are obviously out of shape.
It looks bad, but I still have hope. Powell and Herro will improve, Bam will be back, and Heat will play decent basketball again. And other teams will loose games, too.
After two looses, the tank talk is on again around here. Soft tank, hard tank, whatever.
For what? A slim possibility, to get a bit better player in the draft? I watched a bit some top players from so called “loaded draft class”… well, there is no Wemby, Luka, Flagg level players in there. a future all star or two in there? Sure, but nothing more than that. We have 3 or 4 of those in the team already.
And NBA will try to prevent tanking next year. Why spoil the reputation this year?
I agree with your assessment. The sixth seed hope is far from over. The schedule favors Toronto slightly, going by who has the most sure wins left. Philly is behind us in the standings, but they also have more tankers. But, they can lose to tankers unless their stars come back. Atlanta has about the same difficulty of remaining schedule as us and Orlando has it worse. Who avoids the play-in is very much still up for grabs and will likely be determined by head to head match-ups between the competing teams.
Out of 13 games, we can count on 3 games (IND, 2xWAS). We can get one out of three from LAL, HOU and SA games, one of two Cle games, one of two Toronto games, and one out of three of BOS, ATL,PHI games.
3+1+1+1+1 gives us a record of 7:6 in those 13 games and the final record of 45:37. I believe that would be enough for 6th place.
“After two looses, the tank talk is on again around here. Soft tank, hard tank, whatever.
For what? A slim possibility, to get a bit better player in the draft? I watched a bit some top players from so called “loaded draft class”… well, there is no Wemby, Luka, Flagg level players in there. a future all star or two in there? Sure, but nothing more than that. We have 3 or 4 of those in the team already.”
What do you think would happen if this team makes the playoffs serious question? A run to the finals? Be a tough out? What team are they beating? Cavs? Ny? Bos?
This how I know yall only watch heat basketball cause I can name all the players that would be the best players on the heat right now, Aj Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Caleb Wilson, Cam Boozer, Darius Acuff, Kingston Flemings, Mikel Brown all instantly would be considered mias best and most talented players.
Your statement which I copied and pasted is why this team will forever be playin/fringe playoff team forever lmao. The heat Ten Commandments bandits, eating up Pat doo-doo like it’s a full course meal.
Those players would be considered talented, but not the best players for years. No rookie is an instant difference maker.
Likely the first round exit, for sure the second round one. So what? It is clear from the beginning of the season, that this team is not a contender.
The alternative is tanking. Its too late for that right now. And that wont be an alternative next year because change of rules. Losing wont be awarded any more.
Heat were play in team for 3-4 years now, but they were in finals and east finals before. They are better this year a then last year, and there is a good chance to be better next year. As long the team is going in the right direction, I m fine with it.
In a second when team will start to tank, I ll stop watching the Heat.
So the goal in your opinion is for the heat to make the playoffs. You talk about Flagg and wemby two players whom haven’t won nothing yet and Luka who is a notoriously bad defender as being generational meanwhile a non generational player won mvp and a championship last year sga picked 11th lmao or the player that beat Mia Jokic a 2nd round pick. But in some opinion on this blog those players aren’t better than pelle jjj I guess
I cant recall anybody said that. But this confirms that great players are available also late in the draft.
I agree with you and disagree with you, which it seems we do often. First, I agree that the Heat are better this season and trending in the right direction. But there was this young rookie last night who has been an instant difference maker all season, so it does happen. And to return to a previous difference of opinion, last night we saw that Keshad can, indeed, play in this league. Great player? No. But active and athletic, and if he keeps hitting that 3 ball (that was his big weakness), he can be a steady rotation player.
We do both, which is totally fine.
To your credit, I will improve my opinion about Keshad from never be a NBA player to very unlikely to be a NBA player.
I think more problematic then his poor 3p shooting is his impact on the game, which is often marginal. I get this impression during summer league, and two good games since then didn’t change that impression much.
He was impactful last night, despite going 3-9 for 3p at the end. So yes, I m happy for him. And I think now, that there might be some more in him.
It was meant in the way that adding even the best 2026 prospect wouldn’t elevate Heat to contender level next year.
And yes, rookies can be difference makers, unfortunately for Heat last night.
Hornets shot 3-pointers at a 40.5% clip.
Heat shot 3-pointers at a 19.4% clip.
During tonight’s game, it was painfully obvious that Miami is totally dependent on Bam for offense, defense and leadership. He can’t do it all alone, Miami does not have the horses to get it where it wants to go and Riley has done nothing to help Bam in the front court other than give Jovic a 4 year extension he did not earn. Without Bam, Miami is a high lottery team.
If the Heat is playing well enough to earn a 5th or 6th place finish, they might, with a little luck, be able to get out of the first round.
However, if Miami is not playing well enough to qualify for 5th or 6th place (an automatic playoff spot), and is again a play-in team (for the 4th straight year), it would be better for the team not to get out of the play-in round.
If the Heat survives the play-in round, it will limp into the playoffs and will likely face Detroit or Boston in the first round. If the Heat does not make the playoffs, it would qualify for the lottery. As we know from last year, the ping pong balls don’t always fall to the team(s) with the best odds.
13 games to go and the #5 – #9 teams are separated by 2 games. It all comes down to which two teams are the hottest down the stretch. Atlanta (#9), Miami (#10) and
Charlotte (#12) have the toughest remaining schedules. Orlando (#17), Philadelphia (#21) and Toronto (#23) have the easiest.
Hopefully, tonight’s embarrassment will motivate the team to do better, beginning on Thursday with the red hot Lakers (9-1 in the last ten games).
It is what it is.
GO HEAT!!!
I agree with your comments. Turns out the Heat are quite dependent on Bam. It showed how much we needed the third center we never got last night in almost shocking clarity. Last night our defense let us down even more than our poor shooting. It’s too much to ask of Bam to do it alone. And, we saw an average team beat our butts and remind us we are still just a slightly above average team. And that beat down can’t be easily dismissed by a lack of Bam and Wiggins.
The big picture is that even though this team is on a positive trajectory, having slightly improved on last year’s team, if this year ends up like last, we can’t go on like this anymore. The improvement we’ve made isn’t enough and if all we get is another first round exit at best, we need to change philosophy. We will be three years into this mediocrity and more able to see the pattern and the flaws in the approach. I don’t mind letting this season play out as it will tell us where we stand and going into the soft tank alternative from here isn’t that much more advantageous. But, if we do go home early, this off-season we have to do something different, pick a new direction, and implement change. And we have to make those changes from the start of the season.
A lot to digest here. If they are that dependent on Bam, it is the definition of mediocrity. I have no problem with the team trending in the right direction but, like most, would like to see more progress, faster. But when someone says that we have to do something different, my question is what exactly? As I have written before, you can start with trying to get as much return on the veterans as possible to use for more draft picks, or to include in trades for better players. I’m not sure what
choices we have. Sometimes you just have to get lucky. Oklahoma did with SGA and Denver did with Jokić. The Knicks also did when they traded for Brunson, who blossomed after he was traded.
Yes, getting lucky would be nice. But, that may not happen picking in the mid, even though every once in a while it does happen. We do have some difficult decisions to make, time frame wise, and may need to take some real chances to get better in the short term or we may have to go thru some longer term pain (some kind of tank) to improve.
I don’t think we can get that much better with internal growth and development, as Ware, the one player who has a possible higher ceiling, may not be a sure thing to get that much better. I believe we can only make the leap higher from here by bringing in a draft choice or a trade. And, not doing anything, or trimming at the edges, would have concerns also because some players we have, our best players, are veterans without long windows.
If we are going to not make some bold moves which really move the needle, then some level of tank is probably our best path, even with the long term payoff. That’s as specific as I can be as it’s a complex problem.
In discussing the Heat’s younger players, I mentioned Ware, but I left out Kaspar, and his ceiling could actually be quite a bit higher. But, he plays at a position we already are pretty good at. And Pelle, it looks like his ceiling is also possibly a little higher, but he seems to be more fully evolved already. For Gardner and Keshod, maybe some growth is possible too, but they are unlikely to become much more than down rotation players. Jaimie and the rest of the players are pretty near their ceilings so it is my opinion the Heat won’t get much better internally, not enough to challenge the top tier teams. So, to really improve, it will be by bringing a player in via trade, free agency, or a draft pick.
Oklahoma City traded Paul George to the Los Angeles Clippers in July 2019 to acquire Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. In addition to Gilgeous-Alexander, the Clippers trade package for George included, forward Danilo Gallinari, five future first-round draft picks and two pick swaps. OKC’s trade was more shrewdness than luck.
NBA trades are calculated risks. Some teams are willing to take big risks. Others prefer to stay in a safe/comfort zone where they do not face too much risk or criticism. In exchange, they are willing to accept marginal improvement. This is where Riley has been since the Butler trade 7 years ago (July 2019). “In a seasonless world, where you shall laugh, but not all your laughter and weep, but not all your tears.” (Kahlil Gibran)
It’s time for changes and risks in Miami. The other (safer) option is to continue down the same path, doing the same things and expecting different results.
I agree with you on what comes next. The approach the past few seasons has done nothing other than ensure Miami’s continued mediocrity. In order for the Heat to improve, there must be a change in philosophy by Riley/ Miami management. Making minor changes around the margins isn’t working.
Miami needs to start over from scratch and decide where it is going and the best way to get there. To begin with, decisions need to be made on which players to keep, trade or allow contracts to expire.
Keepers:
Bam, Mitchell,
Players on rookie or minimum veteran contracts Ware, Jaquez, Larsson, Jakucionis, Smith, Johnson, Gardner, 2026 first round pick, 2026 second round pick and Wiggins if he opts in (unless he can be included as part of a larger trade)
Trade (if possible):
Herro, Jovic
Allow Contracts to expire (sign & trade if possible)
Rozier, Powell, Fontecchio, Wiggins (if he opts out).
Note: If Rozier, Powell, Fontecchio and Wiggins are gone by this summer, Miami’s entire roster will be under the age of 30 (and one of the youngest in the league). It is currently the 18th youngest.
I agree with much of this, but don’t think there will be much of a market for Herro and Jovic. Maybe Herro because it’s an expiring contract at a reasonable rate as long as he’s healthy. And as we’ve pointed out before, if they let Powell and/or Wiggins walk, why didn’t they get anything they could at the deadline? Maybe they felt if the only offers were second round picks, that they might as well keep them. Sign and trades would help if they can pull that off. I do really like the youth of the team. Two good moves (I think we need more than one) could help bring this team to the next level.
Two good moves (I think we need more than one) could help bring this team to the next level.29 other teams saying the same thing rc.
Different teams need different players. I’m thinking only about my team, don’t give a rats ass about any other.
u take away teams 2 best players what do u expect. 29 teams can say the same thing.
Donovan Mitchell?
If possible
Larsson picked up his 4th PF with 3 min to go in the 3Q, Heat down 83-81, that felt like a pivotal point.
Heat without Bam are 10 points worse this season and this game showed that, Miami ORTg was 101 and DRtG 128 (league average is 115)
Where we are at should not be a surprise to anyone. We are a mediocre team with some good young players. It is a younger group than most that I can remember. A better team than last season, but still mediocre. 30 and I are on track to get close to our 45-37 predictions. With 2 draft picks in a deep draft, including some good athletic power players, the team can continue to improve. Getting that A to A+ player remains the challenge.