The Miami Heat were at the wrong end of another fourth-quarter collapse Wednesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder, losing 115-101 inside Paycom Center.
Miami was outscored 32-8 across the final 12 minutes, the second time in as many road games it was outscored by at least 22 points. It was outscored 31-9 in Brooklyn five nights ago against the Nets–thus making it a 63-17 difference in those combined.
The Heat was up by 10 heading into the third quarter–and by as many as 16 in the second half. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luguentz Dort accounted for each of the Thunder’s first 13 points to begin the period, including Gilgeous-Alexander’s 26-foot wing triple to give the Thunder their first lead of the night with 9:32 left. The Thunder rattled off 11 more points before Bam Adebayo’s third 3-pointer of the night gave the Heat their first score–putting an end to a 24-0 Thunder avalanche over the first 5:46.
Miami couldn’t trim the deficit below double figures the rest of the way, converting on three of its 18 fourth-quarter attempts after shooting 54.1 percent (33-61) over the first 36 minutes.
Bam Adebayo was spectacular the entire night, finishing with a team-high 27 points plus 15 rebounds on 11-of-19 shooting, including 3-of-4 from 3-point range with four assists, one steal and one block. Davion Mitchell and Tyler Herro had 14 points apiece while Andrew Wiggins tallied 13 points and four rebounds in 34 minutes.
Even after a slow start, Gilgeous-Alexander, a top-2 candidate for MVP (along with Denver’s Nikola Jokic), had 32 points and nine assists on 11-of-22 shooting and 4-of-9 from 3-point range. Jalen Williams had 18 points and six rebounds while Dort tallied 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting with a pair of 3-pointers.
After Wednesday’s loss, the Heat have scored less than 10 points in seven fourth quarters since the start of the 2011-12–three coming since Dec. 20. They have become the second team in franchise history–the other being in 1989-90, the second year of their existence–to have done that more than twice in a season. Unfathomably bad.
It also drops them to 25-27, the first time in three months it has fallen two games below .500. The Heat will need a quick response, traveling to Dallas for the second game of a back-to-back before the All-Star break.
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I once wrote a short story with a character who was a tennis instructor. He’d tried going pro in the 90’s, but never made it far. He liked to brag about how he once lost to Sampras in straight sets.
“You lost in straight sets!” people reacted in the story. “Why are you bragging?”
“Ah, but to Sampras!”
OKC is rolling this year. I don’t think before tip-off any of us were expecting a win, although the hopes were certainly high by halftime. We lost to Sampras.
Let’s just make sure we don’t lose to the Mavs.
So, you write short stories. Very impressive.
OKC is rolling, they are really good. There’s nothing wrong losing to Sampras. The problem is we also lost to Agassi and Courier and Becker and Chang, too.
The issues of this team have piled up over the years. It’s going to take some time to make us better. We are in transition period now. (hopefully not in The process).
Starting lineup is set for the rest of the season, I believe.
The question, what about the bench.
I think Nico is our 6th man from the bench, who have to play big minutes. We have two shooters in Dunc in Burks, one of them will be 7th man. We have two dogs in HH and Pelle, one of them will replace Mitchell (very good game last night). Thats 8th man.
Love is coming in in case of fouls of frontcourt players
9th, 10th and 11th man are JJJ, Kyle and Rosier, two of them will play rotation minutes till PO.
This team makes sense now.
.
Having a real PG is a start, but this team is far from making sense.
Yes, point guard was a problem. team makes sense, when it has all it needs. The quality of players is another question.
I agree with your assessment of the line up. However I am not so sure we are done yet. Spo has been changing the line up and rotations all season. It doesn’t make much sense to me. He has tried most of the combinations, and nothing worked consistently. And even if something works, he changes it again completely the next game for a different line up that doesn’t work and we start all over again. I don’t think he will make it work consistently with these guys. I would be happy if they proved me wrong, though.
I know it is still early, but I don’t think Wiggins, Mitchell and Anderson are game changers for us. They seem to be decent players, but not good enough to make us significantly better. They have their own flaws, but at least Wiggins and Mitchell seem to be an upgrade over what we had and deserve to start.
Let’s see what we can do against the shorthanded Maverics.
Although they beat the healthy Warriors last night.
We have been beaten down lately. But, all is not lost. We had lineups that looked more normal and played more like an nba team last night until the fourth quarter. We are reasonably close to contention.
This is my Rx for improving. Starters should be Ware, Bam, Ty, Davion, and Wiggins. But, we need an upgrade on Davion, maybe by offseason, someone who has more offense and playmaking ability, a player who can score in crunch time. But, Davion will still be an important part of the rotation. Dunc needs to be moved by season end as we need his salary to be put towards improving. Love should not be on the roster next season. Burks should play over. Rozier, who is another player who needs to be upgraded on because, like Dunc, he makes too much. HH should play only sparingly. K Anderson needs to be put into the lineup over HH to see what he has to offer. And, now is the time to bring in a Johnson, Stevens or Christopher, to see if they can contribute, nothing to lose anymore.
We still need to get another scoring big. But, it has to be an upgrade on Wiggins, someone even better, a star who can score in crunch time. It won’t be an easy get, but it is a necessity. Then Wiggins can be used as a starter or sixth- seventh man, pushing Nico down the rotation.
The money from the contract relief we get from Dunc and eventually Rozier can be used for the upgrades. The possible two draft picks we can get should be used for the guard upgrade over Davion, and the forward upgrade over Wiggins. JJJ can be used as trade bait along with Rozier to try to accomplish this also.
We have a window of maybe three, four years. But, we have to start improving now. We can’t have any more bad contracts, no more mistakes. We are not a playoff team now, and only are a playin team because of how weak the ninth and tenth teams are. This season is likely lost. But, let the healing and rebuilding begin.
I m not sure if everything is lost.
Team, which can play against Boston one good qt. and against OKC three like Heat did in past two games, is not a bad team. I believe we have a quality to play with those teams, the question is if long enough to beat them. Probably not this year.
But potential is there. It wasn’t last year.
The potential is almost there, You can see how, with some upgrades, we could be building something more solid than before. The time line is better too. But, as for our chances for this season, let’s just say its nice to be optimistic.
If the goal is being in the play-in game, sure the season can still be a success. But you can’t have watched this season play out (or last season) and think that the current roster as it’s constructed can do anything meaningful.
They are I believe 7-17 against winning teams. Against teams currently in the top 4 in their conference they are 3-11.
They haven’t won a game against a squad with a winning record since December 29th.
The team doesn’t have the horses to win. Doesn’t have the draft picks or cap space to infuse talent in the off season. This organization is the late 90’s early 00’s bullets/wizards. Enough to maybe squeak in to the playoffs only to be made a fool of.
sm r u ok look forward to reading your article in the morning.its way better than iras sun sentinel.articles
when u have athletes like okc this is a game which shows some of our guys nonathleticism gets exposed (niko mainly).that display of lockdown d is why guys like niko jjj dunc are so limited in their overall game and really should be moved in a trade for real dawgs.to much of a burden is placed on ty that its gonna bring his game down.hes not a kyrie ant ja brunson type player.dont know who to get (kd) but tys a good #2 type player.i dont watch college ball so if 2q knows a couple dawgs out there pls enlighten me.or possibly some of the kiddies might be dawgs but this spobotic coach wont give them a shot.
The fourth quarter crunch time is a different game. No one on our team could do much. We are still two players away. We can use money from Dunc and Terry to get better, or we can use the draft pick or picks to also help. Till then, no line-up will really fix our weaknesses enough to beat an OKC.
As for the non athletes, I agree. But, there are others who hurt us on d too, like Rozier. I think having Ty in there without any of the others doesn’t hurt us on d, and his offense is sorely needed. Same goes for Nico on the second team.
I watched the first half. I was surprised that they played so well, I think with the current roster this is their ceiling. But still I did not expect a win.
What is going on with the last quarters? How are we not able to score even 10 points? I haven’t seen that last quarter. Honestly I don’t feel like watching it, but I guess I will have to to understand. It is a third last quarter meltdown in this season. This is not a coincidence. There’s something wrong. Partial reason is the new additions and changes, I get that but still I don’t think it can be explained only by that.
HFL dancing on the grave of two players brought the negative energy and left with nobody to blame.its a shame. Hopefully he brings some positive vibes in the game thread tonight and we might have a chance vs Mavs 😉
both teams on b2b kyrie aint gonna have the energy like last night.ive never been a mavs fan till last night.whoever gsw plays next im a fan of unless its boston or ny then i might root for gsw.no i take that back cant root for benedict butler ever.id be shocked if jimmy is not hurt by the end of february
League and Feds needs to investigate Riles, Spo and co. There’s a trend here 😉
Off the topic.
I watched the game with NBA league pass. Some moron recorded the game zooming the player with the ball all the time. It was awful, you couldn’t see what is going on.
Anybody else had the same problem?
When you watch the game in League pass you can choose if you want to watch Home team or Away team broadcast or TV braodcast (if it is a televised game) or Mobile View. So most likely when you opened it up it played the Mobile View stream. You can change it at the bottom of the screen in the app.
Thank you for that, I didn’t know that.
Yes, that fixed the issue.
Deep apology to those recorded the game. I m a moron, not them.
Great game for 3/4 of the game.
Against Boston was 1/4, so thats an improvement.
There are reasons to be optimistic.
😲
With such tempo, the next one is 5/4.
I’ll take the OT win.
They looked great for 3 quarters. Unfortunately, there are 4 quarters in basketball. The team has now scored a total of 37 combined points in the 4th quarter in the last 3 games.
Oh well, it is what it is. I was encouraged by the play of Mitchell, Burks and Bam.
I’m looking forward to the Heat improving the roster this summer through the draft, summer trades and free agency. Meanwhile, I’m not going to get too excited about this season until/unless we start seeing see consistency. A 5 game winning streak to start with would help. That could happen, considering Miami has the NBA’s 5th weakest schedule remaining this season. Personally, I would prefer that they not make the playoffs this year so they can retain their lottery pick, rather than convey it to OKC.
FYI, tomorrow’s opponent, Dallas, played against “Jimmy F***- it” and the Golden State Warriors tonight. Dallas, which was playing without PJ Washington, Powell, Gafford, Lively, Martin and AD, had a starting line-up of Prosper, Edwards, Christie, Thompson and Irving. Dallas won the game 111-107.
Didn’t you just write this to me? :
Miami has the 6th most difficult schedule after the all-star break. So there’s that.
so is it the 6th most difficult or the 5th weakest?? Or was your comment for just the games immediately after the all star break?
I saw it on different website so I Googled it and found the Tankathon site. They indicate Miami has the 26th most difficult schedule remaining.
Note: Phoenix has the most difficult.
https://www.tankathon.com/remaining_schedule_strength
P.S. There have been four single-digit fourth quarters in the NBA this season and the Heat has three of them (eight fourth-quarter points in a Dec. 21 loss to the Orlando Magic, eight fourth-quarter points in Wednesday’s loss to the Thunder and nine fourth-quarter points in Friday’s loss to the Brooklyn Nets).
spo has no answers thats just not on the players.some of the lineups to start 4th are gd awful
kyrie went off.maybe he has an off night
yeah coach blew that listening to ethan alot blame at spobot again.jovic vs these guys not fair to him.that flying drop kick off the top apron was nice lol.i have come to the conclusion that jjj is better fit for the nba than jovic.this guy tries to over dribble to the hoop alot and nothing good ever happens.jaime usually can get to the rim and finish or get shot blocked.both are not starters on a good team.if pelle can develop a little offense like him more than niko.nikos just gonna have to be a 3pt shooter. to slow for sf to weak for pf.if he takes his talents to europe hed be much better off
Still need to find a flow, especially in the 4th. Need to make shots, especially 3’s when the other team is making them.
Kind of glad it’s a back to back. Get back out there and see if you can get a W before AS break.