End of (bad) series for the Heatwho remained on two defeats in a row before this match on their floor against the wolveswho continue to sink into a bad dynamic, with a third consecutive setback.
Yet deprived of its two best players, Jimmy Butler and Bam AdebayoErik Spoelstra’s troops have indeed won, after an intense and hotly contested match (10 draws, 10 changes of leader in the score), a major success (113-110), which allows them to stay in contact of the Top 6 in the Eastern Conference.
Difficult to read for more than 39 minutes, the outcome of this meeting took shape at the very end, about thirty seconds from the final buzzer, when Tyler Herroyet very clumsy from the start, and above all totally off-center in a corner, planted a huge decisive two-point shot at the end of possession, to give the Heat a healthy five-point lead.
Behind, Anthony Edwards closed the gap to -3 with a quick basket, but Wolves, after a final stop and a final time-out, failed to deploy a good system to equalise.
WHAT YOU MUST REMEMBER
– Wolves’ ball losses. Difficult to hope to win when you lose 22 balls, and yet Wolves only fail at -3. A small miracle, which is partly explained by the fact that the Heat was not very realistic, not taking advantage of these mistakes by their opponents enough to capitalize (15 points scored only on lost balls). Another source of regret for Chris Finch’s squad, when we know the final gap: a 9/14 in free throws…
– The good surprise Orlando Robinson. In the absence of Bam Adebayo, and knowing that the only other trade interior available to the Heat was… Udonis Haslem, the 22-year-old center, rookie on a “two-way contract” this season, took the opportunity to show off. With 15 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists, in 27 minutes off the bench, we would even venture to say that he dominated Rudy Gobert in their direct confrontation, indeed bringing size to the picture, against the French a little timorous at times.
– Tyler was the Herro the Heat never expected. The game behind the Heat is paradoxical. For more than 39 minutes he played on alternating current. Very clumsy in shooting, like this 0/8 behind the arc, but rather effective in distribution, with 8 assists. Then, when it came time to kill the game, something his teammates couldn’t do on the previous few possessions, he took matters into his own hands and didn’t hesitate at all. Perfectly applying the mentality of a confident shooter, namely that you should never be afraid to take a shot, even if all the previous ones have not hit the mark. And the leather actually entered the net on this final shot, the most complicated of all, about thirty seconds from the end, to give his team a two-possession lead. A “dagger” registered at the best of times, despite a very complicated match in terms of rhythm and address…
TOPS & FLOPS
✅ Kyle Lowry. Good performance from the veteran Heat leader, very clean and “all-around”, with 18 points, 5 rebounds and 9 assists, without the slightest loss of ball. If the decisive shot, signed by the hands of Tyler Herro, is the image that we retain of this match, the credit for the victory goes largely to the former All-Star of the Raptors, who held the house at leading the attack for the duration of the match.
✅⛔️ Anthony Edwards. Increasingly leading lately, “Ant” was once again the best player on his team, finishing the game with 29 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 steals. On the other hand, his good performance is badly tarnished by 8 ball losses. That’s more than a third, alone, of his team’s total. Really a shame, because otherwise its performance is particularly good.
✅ Naz Reid. The substitute pivot clearly had a better match than the one he is understudy, Rudy Gobert. Used full-time on position 5, while we remember that he struggled to adapt to the position of strong winger before the injury of Karl-Anthony Towns, the former LSU did damage in exit bench in the Heat racket, with 21 points and 11 rebounds. His less vertical but more lateral profile than that of the Frenchman perhaps represented a better “matchup”, against this atypical Heat team, which played a lot without a real interior on the field.
⛔️ Rudy Gobert, exactly. Even if he finished honorably with 10 points and 8 rebounds, the French pivot was not very present during this meeting, on both sides of the field. As we said in the previous paragraph, this observation is above all related to the structure of the match, since the Heat is not necessarily the team against which it is most comfortable, the Floridians playing particularly small, and off.
THE FOLLOWING
– Heat (17-17): reception of the Lakers, on the night of Wednesday to Thursday (01:30 a.m.)
– Wolves (16-18): trip to the Pelicans, on the night of Wednesday to Thursday (02:00)
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