Tyrese Haliburton’s career night pushes Pacers past Heat 111-108

Well, it’s safe to say Wally Szczerbiak’s comments didn’t do Miami any favors.

After the Miami Heat moved above .500 for the first time of the season with the help of its only four-game win streak of the year, they dropped their second straight game to move back below .500 on Friday, this time at the hands of the Indiana Pacers, 111-108.

Tyrese Haliburton, who had just one point without making a field goal in their last meeting on Dec. 12, lit the Heat on fire. He scored 43 points — the second-most a player has scored against the Heat this season — on 14-of-20 shooting, knocking down a franchise record 10 triples on 16 attempts.

Haliburton did a beautiful job attacking Miami’s soft-switching in the pick-and-roll all evening, immediately hoisting shots when the switch occurred instead of attacking in isolation for an inherently inefficient attempt.

And perhaps the best example of that was….

Bad point-of-attack personnel (no Oladipo, Martin or Highsmith?), and even worse miscommunication on the peel switch that resulted in Miami’s 17th loss — fourth by three points or fewer — this season. But I digress.

Haliburton, and Indiana in general, did a good job pushing the pace and creating offense before Miami’s half-court defense could fully set itself up. One of the beneficiaries was Buddy Hield, who canned seven triples of his own (on 11 attempts), finishing with 21 points and five rebounds.

Jalen Smith, who played 23 minutes in lieu of Turner’s foul trouble (for three quarters), and Andrew Nembhard were Indiana’s only other double figure scorers.

Smith finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds, his fifth double-double this year. Nembhard added 10 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals on 4-of-11 shooting in 34 minutes.

Miami had five double figure scorers, led by Tyler Herro, who had a team-high 28 points on 10-of-23 shooting and 5-of-13 from 3-point range. He also had four boards, and two dimes.

Kyle Lowry and Jimmy Butler — who sprained his ankle and played only 28 minutes, missing the entire fourth quarter — had 21 and 20 points, respectively. Lowry added six rebounds and five assists, while Butler had six rebounds, three assists and two steals. Bam Adebayo had 18 points, seven rebounds and three assists, while Haywood Highsmith tallied 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting with three rebounds plus a pair of assists and steals as well.

Haliburton and Hield (17) had four more triples than the Heat as a team (13) on six fewer attempts; Miami got outscored by 24 points from distance.

And both of Indiana’s flamethrowers got off to fashionable starts from 3-point range. They combined for 11 first-half triples on 16 combined attempts! But despite finishing a minus-15 in the first-half 3-point battle, the Heat still possessed a two-point lead — 58-56 — after the game’s opening 24 minutes. Miami shot 48.9 percent in the half while Indiana shot 50.0 percent from both the field and from distance (11-22).

Haliburton buried three more triples in the third quarter, one of which put Indiana up 76-75 with over three minutes remaining, prompting a Heat timeout. While Miami didn’t have an apopletic “turd quarter™”, it got outscored by Indiana, 28-24, trailing by two.

Miami trailed by as much as 12 with 6:03 to go, but the quintet of Lowry, Herro, Victor Oladipo, Highsmith and Adebayo helped trimmed the lead to 107-103 with less than two minutes remaining. Five straight points from Herro — including a game-tying 3-pointer with 14.0 seconds left — tied it at 108 with 14.0 seconds left.

But the Heat giveth, and the Heat taketh away. We all know what happened next — yet another crushing loss that dropped them to 16-17 and below .500 yet again.

P.S. We echo this sentiment tonight, @ Silver Screen and Roll.