In what was considered a “must-win” Miami dropped the ball in this one.
The Miami Heat get blown out at home in what was an important matchup for playoff seeding against the Brooklyn Nets, 129-100. The Heat dropped to 40-35 on the season as the Nets improve to 40-34, pushing Miami back to the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference. The Nets have also swept the season series against the Heat 3-0. After starting the game off hot, the return of the “turd quarter” was too much to overcome. Just an ugly game in the second half on both ends of the court for a Heat team that were winners of 7 out of their last 10 and looking like they were starting to gain momentum.
Quite possibly the worst time to have a turd quarter is in a game like this.
— Hot Hot Hoops (@hothothoops) March 26, 2023
Max Strus was the story of the game to start the night. He came in off the bench and immediately started to fill it up offensively. He had 15 points in his first 3 minutes of action and went into the half on fire. At one point he was 8/8 from the field, but it didn’t last. He was a no show in the second half of the game. Tyler Herro also started out solid and efficient only to slow down following halftime himself.
Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo both just didn’t impact the game as much as they needed to. Butler and Adebayo had a quiet 18 points and 16 points, respectively, and it wasn’t enough. Butler came into this game averaging 26.0 PPG post All-Star break, and his struggles to break down the Nets defense carried over from the last time these two teams met.
There wasn’t nearly enough help from the other members of the supporting cast either. Kyle Lowry, Gabe Vincent, Kevin Love, and Caleb Martin all combined for 17 points on 5/20 shooting overall. Minimal contribution from rotation guys like that is a recipe for disaster. There was no collective effort or hustle to end this game. The last 2 quarters could of arguably been one of the worst halves of the season, if not the worst.
The Heat shot the ball at a decent clip, going 38/80 from the field as a team, good for 48%. They also shot 40% from 3 point range, but dramatically cooled off from how good they shot it in that department in the start of this game. Defensively, Miami gave up 27 points to Mikal Bridges and 23 points to Cam Johnson. The Nets had 6 guys in double figures, including all 5 of the starters.
They immediately went down 8 points to open the second half and chipped back at that lead a little bit just for the Nets to eventually blow it open. The team got outscored 63-31 in the last 2 quarters.
Real disappointing effort from a team that really looked like they were getting hot and in a nice rhythm at the right time. Miami is now .5 games behind the 6th seed where the Nets own the tiebreaker. They are also 2.0 games behind the 5th seed Knicks, who are set to play again this week, after reaching to 1.5 games behind a few nights ago.
The Heat will look to bounce back with an important and difficult matchup against the Raptors in Toronto Tuesday at 7:30 PM ET, the first night of a back to back.