Even though the Cleveland Cavaliers climbed back and erased a 21-point second-half deficit, the Miami Heat survived with a 120-103 road win over Cleveland inside Rocket Center Wednesday night.
The 17-point win snapped the Heat’s five-game losing streak — while also snapping the Cavaliers’ four-game win streak. Miami ended the final 6:59 on a 23-8 run, highlighted by the play from both Pelle Larsson and Kel’el Ware.
Larsson led the Heat in the fourth quarter with nine points with five boards — including multiple saves and loose balls secured in critical situations, qualities that won’t always pop up on the box score. Ware had seven fourth-quarter points — 13 for the game on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting — while Jaime Jaquez Jr. also had seven points in the period.
Predictably, Miami faltered in the third quarter on both ends of the floor, but they were able to buckle down after a red-hot start. It shot 51.9 percent from the floor and 18-of-45 (40.0 percent) from beyond the arc, the first time it has made 18 or more threes in a single game since March 6.
All but one Heat player scored at least 11 points in the winning effort — with none of them cracking 20. It was an egalitarian effort, led by Norman Powell’s 19 points and Tyler Herro’s 18. Powell shot 7-of-12 from the floor and 3-of-7 from 3-point range, while Herro knocked down four of his eight triple tries in 30 minutes.
Heat star Bam Adebayo struggled from the floor, but finished with a 17-point, 10-rebound, seven-assist double-double while anchoring the team’s zone.
Miami jumped from the No. 10 seed to No. 8 in lieu of its win, moving one game back of the Philadelphia 76ers for the No. 7 seed. Miami is also still two games back of Atlanta — who secured a huge overtime win in Detroit, albeit without Cade Cunningham — for the No. 6 seed in the East, which is becoming more unrealistic by the day.
We saw the Heat lean into what’s most important: Defense, which subsequently fueled their offense down the stretch. Every game is more important than the last at this point in an airtight East.
Miami looks to replicate its success Friday against Cleveland — the second of three-straight on the road, and two-straight against the Cavaliers inside Rocket Arena — on Friday at 7:30 p.m. EST.
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- Pelle Larsson reveals areas he wants to improve entering third season
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE FOR 9 REMAINING GAMES (MOST TO LEAST DIFFICULT)
#5: Charlotte (39-34)
#7: Atlanta (41-32)
#9: Orlando 39-34)
#13: Philadelphia (40-33)
#21: Toronto (40-32)
#24: Miami (39-34)
MIAMI’S REMAINING GAMES
3/27: @ Cleveland
3/29: @ Indiana
3/30: Philadelphia
4/1: Boston
4/4: Washington
4/7: @Toronto
4/9: @Toronto
4/10: @Washington
4/12: Atlanta
POSSIBLE FINISHES AND PROJECTED STANDINGS
If Miami wins 3 and loses 6 it will finish 42-40 (#9-#10)
If Miami wins 4 and loses 5 it will finish 43-39 (#9-#10)
If Miami wins 5 and loses 4 it will finish 44-38 (#7-#8)
If Miami wins 6 and loses 3 it will finish 45-37 (#7-#8)
If Miami wins 7 and loses 2 it will finish 46-36 (#6-#7)
If Miami wins 8 and loses 1 it will finish 47-35 (#5-#6)
If Miami wins 9 and loses 0 it will finish 48-34 (#5-#6)
It is also important, that Heat wins the right games. Ideally, the 7:2 and winning the right games would bring 5 or 6 spot… the same result and winning wrong games would be enough only for 7th or 8th.
Lets face it, its a play in again.
A big factor is Philly getting back Embiid and George. If they stay healthy and Maxey returns, they are a serious threat and will almost definitely get a fifth or sixth seed.
THERE IS STILL HOPE IN MUDVILLE
Miami’s keys to winning are using a run & gun offense and a slow down/lock down zone defense. The team has demonstrated it can do both. I’m not under the illusion the Heat can be a top contender, but the boys sure could put up a good fight and possibly even do a little damage in the playoffs. They just need to learn how to close out games.
I remember when Miami was a much better team at holding leads and winning in the clutch. In 2021-22, the Heat finished with a 53-29 record (.646 winning percentage) and finished as the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. It did it by finishing games. The team was 15-8 in games decided by 5 points or less.
Detroit is currently 4.5 games ahead of 2nd place Boston. It is highly unlikely the Celtics will catch them by the end of the season. Cade Cunnigham suffered a collapsed lung on March 17th and is expected to be out until mid-April, or later. The playoffs start on Apriul 18th.
As of tonight, Miami is tied with Orlando and Charlotte for 8th place, 1.0 game behind Philadelphia, 1.5 games behind Toronto and 2.0 games behind Atlanta, with 9 games to go. If Miami wins the 8th spot, it would play Detroit in the first round. Miami matches up well with Detroit, even with Cunningham. if Cunningham is unable to play, I think the Heat might be favored. If Miami wins that series, it would be matched against the winner of the #4 & #5 teams (Cleveland and ?), with Boston and New York going against each other in the other semi-final match-up.
Things are just starting to get interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMRrNY0pxfM
About time.
Unrelated, WPLG should make a deal with the Miami Heat for next season since FanDuel Sports is going broke yet again. FanDuel Sports was paying $55 million to the Miami Heat per year. Berkshire Hathaway owns WPLG and they have a ton of money to spend. It would be a wise investment since WPLG is only news programming now.
????
Investment in what?
Berkshire would have to pay the Heat somewhere in the $60 million range per year. That’s the investment in programming because they don’t have any since they left ABC.
Ah, ok. I m not familiar with that.
Health is a very important part of this story. Only when fully healthy do we have enough contributors, the recipe for success! We may not have any superstars, but we have a lot of good players and we are hard to stop on offense and can be very strong on defense when everyone is around. We need to share the load.
Very impactful games from ware,pelle, Jaquez, davion, and wiggy. Almost thought we would lose when donovan started going on a crazy heater.
The play where Pelle flew out of bounds and somehow passed it to a teammate was a thing of pure beauty, athleticism, max effort. He deservedly has become a fan favorite.
From a few days ago, great breakdown of Larsson’s game. 90th percentile in perimeter isolation defense
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=shm6Jywbb5M
Watching the games his minutes are jumping off the screen. Davion, Larsson, Wiggins, Bam is a great foundation on defense
8 players in double digits. That is close to the recipe.
First half advantage often means terrible second one. I m glad that Heat survived that.
Ware at his best. He was good in offense, but he really made a difference in defense.
As Pelle.
I don’t think Cavs are contenders, so we shouldn’t be too excited about that win.
After that losing streak we need to take a win against anyone with a pulse. 😉
As at least 7 of next nine. At least 4 of those (2xTor, Phi and Atl) Heat cant lose, and 3 out of next five shouldn’t. That makes the next one against Cle expendable.
I’m still shocked they didn’t fall apart after Cleveland took the lead. I’m fairly certain Miami has the most blown double digit leads in the last two years, so I just kind of expect the failures when they get off to hot starts.
Exactly the same feeling. I have no trust in this team whatsoever. Heat can lose any given lead in no time.
Looking at the stats and the overall flow of the game, several thoughts occurred to me.
DEFENSE
Miami can only win consistently if the team plays hard-nosed, physical, all-in team defense for 48 minutes per game. Defense is the team’s strength and is also the catalyst for Miami’s running game/fast breaks, ball movement, steals and blocks.
Tonight, Miami played good defense in the 1st, 2nd and 4th quarters, outscoring Cleveland by 9, 8 and 17 (34 total) points. In the turd quarter, Miami took its foot off the pedal and was outscored by 17 points. The poor defense also had a direct impact on the offense and overall flow of the game during the turd quarter.
BAM AND 3 POINT SHOOTING
Tonight, Bam was 1-9 from 3 point range. For the season he is shooting 31.7% from 3. Jaime Jaquez, who is not a good 3 point shooter, is shooting 29.13% on the season.
Bam should not force 3 point shots, especially when there are other options. For that matter, he should not be forcing up bad shots of any kind. I get the sense he feels he has to be the one to take the lead in scoring, even if he is forcing the issue, as well as bad shots. Ideally, that should not be the case with Herro and Powell in the line-up.
LINE-UP/ROTATION
As the team gets closer to the post-season, the rotation needs to be tightened up Tonight’s line-up seemed to work well, for the most part. If any of the rotation players is injured or not playing well, Spo has several reserves to call on, such as Smith, Fontecchio, Johnson, Garland, and Jovic.
OUTLOOK
When watching Miami play as well as it did tonight, its easy to forget, if only for a moment, just how poorly they have played in several recent games. In 3 of the 5 recent consecutive losses, the opponents scored over 130 points. In the other 2, the opponents scored over 120 points.
If the team makes a commitment to give a 100% effort on defense each and every game for the rest of the season, everything will take care of itself. The goal should be to hold opponents to under 110 points per game. If nothing else, we may be able to see the team’s best version of itself. If they do give all they.ve got, I’m ok with that.
GO HEAT!!!
whos garland darius goldin,to shoot a ball over ware u have to shoot it very very high he is the ultimate shield of defense around the rim.when ware has good games we look like a diff team.that could compete with any team in the east.give him his 35 mins spobot get some confidence in him that u believe in the kid.please dont whiteside him.he himself would be the diff in our current mediocre team to being a pretty good team.
great win mvp spobot played ware alot sat ty at crunch time no dru fonzi.