The Heat had a good night ahead without its star Jimmy Butler, who was suffering from an untimely stomach disease, on Monday against the Nets in a full total at the Kaseya Center.
It wasn’t an easy match for the Miami quintet, even though it was imposed with a wide 110-95 finishing score to a Brooklyn team that fought a tough battle.
With the win, the Heat (14-13) slowed its bad streak of three defeats and took place in the 6th place of the Eastern Conference, before playing again in Orlando next Thursday.
Undoubtedly the good defense of the quintet of the Capital of the Sun was key, but also the impulse given to it by the second unit, its 17 triples (41.5%), and the attitude to impose itself in the final partial and close the game.
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The Heat not only limited the Nets to 39.3 percent effectiveness in field shots but also had a big offensive by 3-1 percent in the hoop shots.
Bam Adebayo woke up at the end and with 23 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists, he was Miami’s best.
Tyler Herro started slow but ended up shining with a double-double and brushed the triple-double with 17 units, 12 rebounds, and 9 assists. “We just worked well, we stayed focused on the 48 minutes,” Herro said.
Keeping them down in the second half is the kind of thing we want to accomplish by building our identity. If we keep the rival below 100 points, you feel we have a great chance to win.
Duncan Robinson scored 5 of the 10 triples he tried and was an important player on the offensive with 17 other cartons.
Nikola Jokic put in 18 units (4 triples) to lead a second unit that was key in the match. Alec Burks scored 12 points, in addition to contributing a lot of basketball on the court.
Can you tell me what you’re doing? Every day our young boys have extremely tough training and you know they’ll help later. The penalty was the ugly injury suffered by Dru Smith who is not looking very good.
We’re all sad and the reason is you don’t want to see anyone injured, but we feel incredibly deep respect for his career.
For Brooklyn, Cameron Johnson scored 19 points, Noah Clowney scored 19 others, Keon Johnson scored 15, and Tyrese Martin scored 14.
The Miami team finished the first half winning by the minimum, 58-57, after being up by 14 points in two very different quarters where Robinson was the best with 14 units, followed by Jovic with 12. Meanwhile, Johnson with 15, and Clowney with 14 led the Nets’s attack.
The first part of the initial partial was highly contested (17-17), despite the Heat’s scoring 6 triples (9-14 in total). It was the arrival of the second unit, led by 10 points by Jovic, that managed to take off on the scoreboard and easily take the fourth 38-27.
Dru Smith slipped only when he carried the ball and had to leave the court as he resented his serious knee injury. Despite this, the quintet of the Capital of the Sun held the 11 points of advantage in the middle of the partial.
But in the second half of the fourth, the Heat was a disaster and recalled in part the last game in Orlando. The Nets took the partial and went to rest with a single point of disadvantage.
Very contested was the start of the third (9-7), until in the middle of the fourth the second unit of Miami entered and stretched the difference to 9 units.
In the end, two triples from Brooklyn narrowed the gap. The Heat took the third 25-21 to extend the lead 83-78.
The quintet of the Capital of the Sun expanded to 10 the difference entering the last partial and reached the half winning by 14 cartons.
But this time away from falling, Miami tightened the pace to take 20 points ahead to sentence the match, which ended with the Miami-friendly quarter (27-17) and the triumph by a difference of 15 units.
