Heat beat Pelicans 100-96, go 2-0 against New Orleans on the season

It wasn’t easy, but Miami found a way to close it out.

The Miami Heat defeat the New Orleans Pelicans at home 100-96, improving to 26-22 on the season. The win keeps Miami in 6th place in the Eastern Conference and still 1st in the division. It was a rough start for the Heat to begin this game, as they trailed by double digits and looked sloppy on both ends. Turnovers and 3 point shooting were an issue, but led by Herro’s 26 points, the Heat came back and were able to close it out.

The Heat had a hole to climb out of early in this game, but a 10-0 run in the closing minutes of the first half helped ignite the team. Five guys in double digits, and all of them were the core guys. Victor Oladipo scored the least out of the five with 11 points, but his impact went beyond the box score. His vision, playmaking and defense was big. Had a couple key plays like a clutch steal late in the 4th and a tough bucket in transition as he also got fouled. Dipo was in all the passing lanes, recording 3 steals on the night.

Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Kyle Lowry all pitched in offensively as well. Butler was able to be aggressive and earn his way to the free throw stripe, hitting 8/10 for the night to go along with 5 steals. Lowry also had 4 steals himself and Adebayo had 2. It’s always a good thing when the guys are active defensively like that and turning defense into offense. Turnovers began being a problem for Miami, but in the second half it was the Pelicans who struggled in the turnover department.
Lowry’s 17 points were needed, as he went vintage mode late in the 4th hitting 9 straight points. It’s rare that Lowry looks for his shot, since he is usually the playmaker looking to get others involved. However, it looked great to see a little flashback of prime Lowry.

Adebayo’s 18 points and 9 rebounds was impressive in terms of the efficiency, going 7/12 from the field. He continues to make his case for the all-star game as his two-way talent was on display this afternoon. Making an impact on defense and with all the switches he had to make throughout.

This game was led by Tyler Herro though, as he was getting to all his spots and it showed with him being the leading scorer for Miami. He had the floater game going, mid range, even had some timely 3 point buckets. The all around improvement in Herro’s game continued to show too, able to bring down 8 boards. He helped jolt the Heat into their comeback and got in a rhythm.

The Heat now will hit the film and prepare for the toughest match up they could have, the number 1 seed in the NBA Boston Celtics.
Boston is set to visit the 305 on Tuesday for a 7:30 PM ET game and an ECF rematch.