Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 98-86 loss to the Atlanta Hawks (27-31) on Monday night at State Farm Arena to close its three-game trip at 1-2. The Heat (26-30) now returns to Miami to begin a four-game homestand with another matchup against the Hawks on Wednesday.
The Heat’s offense hasn’t been good enough to win many games lately. That unfortunate trend continued in Monday’s ugly loss, as the Heat has now dropped six of its last seven games and stands four games below .500 for the first time this season.
With both the Heat and Hawks playing on the second night of a back-to-back set, the Hawks were the better team on Monday, in large part because the Heat turned in its worst shooting performance of the season. The Heat, which now holds the NBA’s fifth-worst offensive rating since Jan. 1, totaled just 86 points on a season-worst 32.1 percent shooting from the field and a season-worst 7-of-40 (17.5 percent) shooting from three-point range while committing 18 turnovers. The 86 points are tied for the Heat’s second-lowest point total this season.
As a result, the Heat recorded its worst single-game offensive rating of the season at 88.7 points scored per 100 possessions. It’s the Heat’s worst single-game regular-season offensive rating since scoring 86.7 points per 100 possessions in a 95-78 loss to the Boston Celtics on Nov. 4, 2021. Monday’s first half was especially brutal for the Heat, as it totaled just 42 points on 29.8 percent shooting from the field and 3-of-23 (13 percent) from three-point range over the first two quarters, entering halftime in an eight-point hole.
“Those were the open shots,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We make a handful more of those, it looks totally different.”
The Hawks extended their lead to 13 points early in the second half before the Heat finally strung together a few made shots to cut the deficit to three with 2:51 left in the third quarter. However, the Hawks responded by closing the period on a 7-2 run, pushing their lead back up to eight entering the fourth quarter.
The Heat could never snap out of its offensive slump, scoring just 21 points on 6-of-15 (40 percent) shooting from the field and 1-of-6 (16.7 percent) shooting on threes while committing seven turnovers in the fourth quarter. That allowed the Hawks to cruise to an eight-point win despite scoring just 98 points on Monday. It marked the Hawks’ first win this season when scoring fewer than 105 points.
The Hawks also won despite getting just 11 points on 4-of-14 shooting from the field and 0-of-7 shooting on threes from their All-Star guard, Trae Young. However, Young contributed with 14 assists.
“Our guys really competed tonight, laid it all out there defensively,” Spoelstra said. “It wasn’t easy, but we were scrambling. They just put up 150 last night, holding them basically to under 100. But you do have to score. There’s a reality to that.”
Heat guard Tyler Herro added: “The second night of a back-to-back, it’s not going to be perfect. Both teams couldn’t make shots, really. It was low scoring all the way through the third, halfway through the fourth. I thought once we started doubling Trae Young, we played right into their hands, got us in rotation, got whatever they wanted, and then we were fighting on the other end to create good looks.”
Andrew Wiggins was the Heat’s leading scorer with 23 points on 6-of-14 shooting from the field, 4-of-9 shooting on threes, and 7-of-7 shooting from the foul line, along with four rebounds, one assist, and three blocks.
The rest of the Heat’s roster combined to score just 63 points on 30 percent shooting from the field and 3-of-31 (9.7 percent) shooting from three-point range on Monday.
“It just looked like we had a lid on the rim,” Spoelstra said. “We could not knock down some of the open ones, even the guys that are our better shooters on the team. But you just have to stay with it. We’re closer than what it feels, and that’s the hard part.”
With Monday’s result, the Hawks passed the Heat in the Eastern Conference standings. The ninth-place Heat is now percentage points behind the eighth-place Hawks, with both teams five games behind the sixth-place Detroit Pistons and firmly in play-in tournament territory.
“I thought this had a chance to be just a really gratifying win,” Spoelstra said. “Just in the mud, ugly, to be able to prove that you can win a game on the road without making shots at your normal level. But we weren’t able to do it.”
The Heat’s best and most consistent source of offense this season went cold. A big part of the Heat’s offensive struggles on Monday came down to Herro missing most of his shots. Herro, who scored 40 points in two of the Heat’s previous three games, matched a season-low with 11 points on 4-of-19 shooting from the field and 0-of-9 shooting from three-point range on Monday.
This was an uncharacteristic performance from Herro, who entered the game averaging a career-high 24.2 points per game on 46.6 percent shooting from the field and 37.8 percent shooting from behind the arc. That was enough for Herro to make his first All-Star Game in his sixth NBA season.
Monday was such an outlier game for Herro that it marked just the second time in his NBA career that he has made four or fewer field goals when taking at least 19 shots in a game. He also shot 4-of-19 from the field in a Jan. 24, 2023, game against the Celtics. Monday also marked the first time in Herro’s NBA career that he has not hit a three-pointer when attempting at least nine shots from behind the arc in a game.
Herro’s Heat co-star, Bam Adebayo, was also relatively quiet with 14 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the field.
In the wake of Heat forward Nikola Jovic breaking his right hand during Sunday’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, Kyle Anderson and Jaime Jaquez Jr. served as Jovic’s replacements on Monday.
Jovic missed his first game with the injury on Monday. Anderson and Jaquez teamed up to fill Jovic’s spot in the Heat’s rotation against the Hawks. However, most of that responsibility fell on Anderson, who closed Monday’s loss with 14 points, five rebounds, and two assists in 28 minutes.
“He gave us some really good minutes,” Spoelstra said of Anderson. “I played him probably a handful more minutes than I anticipated. But he was doing some really good things out there.”
Jaquez finished Monday’s defeat with two points and one rebound in seven minutes.
As for Jovic, the expectation is that he’ll likely be sidelined for an extended stretch. The Heat has not yet issued a timetable for Jovic’s recovery, with just seven weeks left in the regular season. Much of it will depend on whether surgery will be needed.
With the Heat searching for answers, there was another notable change to the rotation on Monday: struggling guard Terry Rozier received his first DNP-CD of the season.
Alec Burks, who has been in and out of the Heat’s rotation this season, played extended minutes against the Hawks but struggled to make shots, finishing with just five points on 1-of-12 shooting from the field and 1-of-9 shooting on threes in 27 minutes.
With Rozier dropping out of the mix, the Heat went with a four-man bench rotation of Duncan Robinson, Burks, Jaquez, and Anderson against the Hawks. That left Rozier, Haywood Highsmith, and Pelle Larsson out of the Heat’s rotation on Monday despite all of them being available to play.
After spending most of the last month on the road, the Heat will now spend most of the next month at home. Monday’s loss to the Hawks marked the end of a 10-game stretch where the Heat played nine games on the road.
“In the NBA, you got to have a short-term memory,” Wiggins said. “On to the next game, and we believe in ourselves, the coaches believe in us, and we know what we can do.”
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