Jimmy Butler’s second-half spark jolted the Miami Heat past the Utah Jazz 126-120 Saturday evening inside Kaseya Center in Miami, Fla.
Bam Adebayo exited the game momentarily with 9:22 left in the third quarter due to a lower-body injury with Miami down five, 69-64. Butler scored 10 of the team’s ensuing 16 points (Terry Rozier scored the other six), including a three-point play in transition to give the Heat an 80-78 lead with 4:47 left.
Butler ultimately scored 18 points in the third quarter and seven more in the fourth. He finished with a season-high 37 points on 12-of-19 shooting, 3-of-3 from 3-point range and 10-of-11 from the free-throw line, in addition to seven rebounds, three rebounds, one steal and one block.
Adebayo, who returned with 2:36 left in the third quarter, had 23 points, seven rebounds and three assists on 10-of-15 shooting. Caleb Martin, who exited the game in the fourth quarter with a mouth injury (he needed six stitches), had 18 points on 4-of-6 shooting from 3-point range with five boards, four assists and a game-high three rejections.
Jaime Jaquez had 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting while Terry Rozier tallied 14 points (5-9 FG) and eight assists in 33 minutes.
According to Cleaning The Glass, the Heat finished in the 89th percentile in offensive rating–tallying 131.3 points per 100 possessions to Utah’s 126.3 points per 100 (80th percentile). The Heat are now 9-2 when they record a 125.0 offensive rating or better (in non-garbage-time possessions), though this is their only third win (in 12 games) with an opponent’s offensive rating of 125.0 or greater.
Keyonte George led the Jazz with 31 points on 12-of-23 shooting and 6-of-14 from 3-point range while Lauri Markkanen had 25 points and six rebounds. Collin Sexton recorded 18 points with five assists while John Collins added 18 points and six boards on 8-of-13 shooting.
After nine offensive rebounds (and 19 second-chance points) in the first half, the Heat limited the Jazz to just three offensive rebounds in the second half. The Heat also forced nine more turnovers and finished only a minus-two on the glass (minus-six in 1H).
Saturday’s victory rewards Miami with its 10th victory over its last 13 games, moving to 34-26. Conversely, Utah drops to 27-34, having lost eight of its last nine and 11 of its last 14, dating back to Jan. 29.
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poor knicks decades of futility.looked like a real nba champ contender when they were whole but og randle and brunson got injured tonight.
Sucks to be them but they gotta deal with it like we have all year.
whos our 3rd best player
Currently? Or when fully healthy ?
fully healthy
rozier ty caleb jjj tier 3 players
Ty is our third best 👌
Not according to the experts who get paid for such opinions and are not employed by the Heat.
That’s easy. Tyler Herro. Would I trade him for a good two-way mobile power forward or center? Yes…in a New York Minute.
Have to agree on both
They’re (NY) built just like the rest of 90% of nba teams. Stars fall their team falls. Sometimes even if just role players same result. Injuries, though that really sucks and we don’t want that for everyone, has been part of sports bb in particular. Heat org knows this and imo has embraced it and has created a system that fits such circumstances. They embody that cliche next man up mentality.
Not a Knicks fan, but don’t like to see fun players get hurt. Hopefully the news is good on OG and Brunson.
3 best players injured,how often does that happen.randle was shooting before the game.
Who cares for NY?
Surely nobody in NY cares if Bam , Herro or Jimmy are injuried.
when Thibs is your coach, the formula is always the same. Overachieve in the regular season, stars get hurt, no chance in the playoffs.
Not so quick with your Dooms Day scenario. NY, without Randle, Robinson, Anunoby and Brunson beat the Cavs (in Cleveland) 107-98. DiVencenzo (28/6/4), Bogdonovich (20/3/3), McBride, back-up PG, 16/1/5, Precious (14/4/2/2, Hart (13/19/10/2/2), Hartenstien (8/7/8). Not too bad a 10 man rotation when they get everyone back, don’t ya think?
They are a legitimate threat when they get healthy and Brunson isn’t hurt too bad. I hope they play Boston or Milwaukee before we have to.
Utah showed what a taller team can do to us in the paint and on the boards (we lost in both areas). If Utah wasn’t such a poor defensive team (we had only 6 turnovers and shot 40% from 3) we could easily have lost that home game.
It may be necessary to play Jovic more and perhaps lose some games we could otherwise win. He has the size, ball handling ability and potential to be a starting power forward. What he lacks is the maturity, experience and confidence. He needs more playing time in order to be productive in the playoffs. If Spo starts Jovic, he could bring in Richardson, Wright, Duncan, Caleb, Love, Jaquez and Highsmith off the bench. I like Orlando, but I don’t think he is ready for prime time. Like Jovic, he needs more maturity, experience and confidence.
It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season unfolds. Up next Detroit.
GO HEAT!!!
Jovic has looked much better on both sides of the court lately. He adds a needed dimension and, most importantly, size. 8/3/4/1 with no turnovers in 19 minutes was a pretty good day.
I know everyone wants to remain positive, but I am not as enamored with this win as many other wins because we had some real trouble with a team that has been losing pretty regularly lately. Our two stars had to be outstanding to prevail. I am thrilled we won, but we need more from our supporting line-up to beat the better teams. I feel like this game is a warning that we need to get healthy, and figure out how to utilize our assets as optimally as possible.
I think the size (or lack thereof) factor really was evident. Rozier had a good game with 14/8 and 2 turnovers. Duncan continues to show that he can contribute even on rough shooting games at 12/5/6/1/1. Martin was pretty amazing. Jaquez was okay.
Missing love really hurt us this game because he’s our 2nd best rebounder, so like you said size hurt us. It’s evident from them owning us on the boards. Also we gave up 19 2nd chance points in the first half ,which was the most we’ve given up all season in the first half. Everybody played well except Highsmith, who still gave some decent D. Orob gets a pass since he barely gets pt, so his rhythm isn’t there yet.
Martin was amazing. He can be such a big contributor when he is on.
Cant take any win for granted ,Say what you want about the jazz, but they always play hard, and give good teams trouble. Some of there notable wins are against okc,bucks,knicks, and also they beat us on the last matchup before. Sure they had injuries but we’re dealing with injuries too with 3 key players. They killed us on 2nd chance points and rebounds, that’s what gave them the chance against us. Also every game should be a warning because every team we face is an NBA TEAM. If you don’t take every team seriously they will come out looking for blood. Plus we was in the finals last year, so of course teams will want to play us hard. Also are supporting line up played well, the only ones that wasn’t that good was orob, who barely gets pt, and Highsmith who isn’t known for his offense.
I was so pleased with Caleb’s game. Hope we don’t lose him to injury for any games. After Rozier, he can be one of our best supporting pieces, but he does occasionally disappear. But, when we have Caleb, JJJ, Ty, Dunc and JRich all available, you know usually at least two of them will have their game going. Hopefully Ty and JRich will be back soon.
I’m kinda there with you. Heat won the game but looked crappy tonight. They came back from the break and had two nice wins against New Orleans and Sac. Since then, they’ve been coasting for three quarters and trying to steal games at the end. It worked against lottery teams like Portland and Utah, but it’s a dangerous habit to get into.
I’m going to fall back on the interaction Riley had with LeBron during the Heatles year. He came back from the all-star break and said the Heat were getting into the ‘home stretch’ and Riley basically told him he was wrong. If you’re trying to win a championship, this season still has four months to go. Riley was right, but LeBron left because he didn’t like being treated like an student.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that there is still plenty of basketball left to play. Heat are still trying new things and not yet in postseason form.
I said it last week & I will say it again. This Heat team is really starting to put things together in a positive way & it is Great to see.
Let’s Go Heat!
one small thing i noticed, at the start of the fourth quarter the Heat were running a full-court press, then falling back into the 2-3 zone. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them do that before. It really ratcheted up the intensity on defense, created some turnovers and got the Heat rolling in the final quarter. I’m going to keep my eye out to see if they do that again.
I think Miami will use the full court press more and more as we get closer to playoffs. Once Josh is healthy, I think he and Wright will be used to slow down opponent offenses and tire out backcourts. You need depth and frequent substitutions for that level of defensive intensity to work effectively. It sure screwed up Utah’s flow today. That’s when the tide turned.
yeah, we’ve been talking about the heat depth all year. Very evident compared to Boston, which has 6 playoff caliber players on the roster. Teams like Cleveland and Milwaukie are leaning heavily on their stars, and Philly and New York are injury prone. If the Heat have the ability to go 10-deep, that doesn’t necessarily help in the playoffs, when starters are playing 35+ minutes per night. But maybe the full-court press is the secret weapon…
At least Caleb can still play. With a mouth cover I think. They got 2 days rest so thats good. And it’s vs the Pistons next thankfully but cnt play it down need to keep the Ws going.
The Butler did it. Again!
The butler was sensational tonight, when Jimmy hitting his 3’s… he is unstoppable. He had his playoff mode activated tonight. Bam helped out Jimmy in the 4th, even hit a kobe fadeaway on big yurt lol. Martin was the best defender tonight had 3 big blocks to go along with good offense before he got hit in the face. Scary Terry had some clutch moments too, had 14 points, and 8 assists. His third consecutive solid game, and getting in the groove of things.