Heat lose 124-119 to the Nuggets on the road

Miami drops back to .500, 18-18 on the season as team still struggling to find consistency

The Miami Heat, still searching for a consistent identity and winning formula, drop one to the Denver Nuggets 124-119. Nikola Jokic was a force tonight, finishing with an impressive 19 point, 12 rebound and 12 assist triple double. This loss brings Miami back to the .500 mark at 18-18 as their short lived back to back wins come to an end at 2 games.

Every time this Miami team is able to string together a couple wins and get over that .500 mark, they respond with yet another disappointing loss. The consistency problems are still very much there and tonight proved so. The team was a step slow on defense for majority of the night, especially in the first half.

After struggling to begin the night, the trio of Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo ended with some solid stats. Herro especially was hitting big shots in the fourth once again, keeping the Heat in the game and finishing with a game high 26 points to go along with 10 boards and 5 assists. He did that with 9/18 shooting as well.

Miami was up 8 points early in the fourth quarter as Jimmy entered the final quarter hot. He scored 7 points in the first 3 4th quarter minutes. They were also up by 2 points with 1:54 remaining in the game. Both leads didn’t last, as the Heat were on the wrong end of this one once that final buzzer hit.

The big problem was the production from the starting PG in Kyle Lowry. He was almost non existent tonight, something that Heat fans have been enduring watching from time and time again over the last year. Lowry finished with an underwhelming 3 points, and looked out of it on defense too. Undoubtedly this team will need better performances from their “QB1” to be competitive.

Duncan Robinson also finally made himself a permanent part of Miami Heat history tonight. He is now the franchise all-time leading 3 point scorer, a very good note for a tough loss.

Herro’s performance, Adebayo’s performance and Duncan carving himself into the history books wasn’t enough for the team to grind out the win.

Miami has not won on the road in Denver since November 30, 2016, six years ago. Tough game but there’s no time to dwell on this one, because the Heat have their second matchup of a back to back set against the Utah Jazz on the road tomorrow.