South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
LA team feeling right at home again
MIAMI — It was against LA, and for the Miami Heat at AmericanAirlines Arena it meant another loss despite yet again standing tall against one of the NBA’s best of the West.
This time the defeat was by a 122-117 count to Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday night.
At 20-0 at home against the rest of the league, the Heat suffered their second home loss of the season, after previously losing to the Los Angeles Lakers on Dec. 13.
“‘If you win here, you’ve got to do some extravagant things,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “And they’ve got a player who did some extravagant things.”
After building an early 15-point lead, the Heat found themselves without an answer for Leonard, who recorded his first career triple-double with 33 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds.
Allowing 79 points in the middle two periods, the Heat went from 15 up in the first quarter to down 101-85 entering the fourth.From there, after going down 18, the Heat closed within 118-115, with 34 seconds left on a Dion Waiters 3-pointer.
Yes, Dion Waiters.
But that’s when Leonard drove past Waiters on a play that resulted in a pair of Leonard free throws and a 120-115 Clippers led with 18.7 seconds left, effectively ending the game.
“They’re a championship-contending team for a reason,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Jimmy Butler did as much as he could for the Heat for as long as he could, closing with 20 points, eight rebounds and seven assists before being helped off the court and into the locker room midway through the fourth quarter after rolling his right ankle.
“It’s a sprain,” Spoelstra said. “We have to reevaluate. He’s getting treatment already.”
But the number of greatest note for the Heat was No. 11.
As in Waiters, the thrice-suspended guard who was making his season debut amid the injury absences of Goran Dragic, Kendrick Nunn and Justise Winslow. One of only 10 available Heat players, Waiters played 18 minutes and closed with 14 points on 5-of-12 shooting.
“When I called him, in typical Dion fashion, he said, ‘I’m ready,’ ”Spoelstra said. “It was good to have him out there.”
The Heat also got 19 points from injuryreplacement starter Tyler Herro, 19 from
Kelly Olynyk, 16 from Duncan Robinson and 18 from Adebayo, who added eight rebounds and nine assists.
Five degrees of Heat from Friday’s game: 1. Why yes, Dion: It reached a point of diminishing options for Spoelstra, so into the void stepped Waiters, after three suspensions totaling 17 games.
To a degree, it was as if nothing had changed, with Waiters loading up on 3-point attempts, slapping his backside on conversions and being full of confidence.
With Nunn (Achilles) and Dragic (calf ) sidelined and Winslow (back) still out, it’s not as if there were many Spoelstra options, particularly after having to move Herro into the first five.
“We need everybody,” Spoelstra said. “Inevitably during a long NBA season you need everybody to contribute.”
Waiters left the locker room without comment, with the team saying it was his decision.
More interesting to see is what, if anything, comes next for Waiters.
“I felt good for Dion, seeing him bounce back,” Adebayo said.
2. Butler hobbled: In addition to leaving before the end of the first half after being poked in the eye, Butler twice rolled his right ankle in the second half.
He eventually was forced to the locker room for the night with 6 minutes, 9 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, closing 6 of 15 from the field and 8 of 8 from the line.
Butler left without comment.
“At least we have a couple of days before the next game,” Spoelstra said, with the Heat off Saturday before returning to practice Sunday.
3. Short all around: Beyond the Heat being down three wings, the Clippers were without Paul George (hamstring) and former Heat draft acquisition Patrick Beverley (groin).
Beverley, who still bristles at being released by the Heat during the 2010 preseason in favor of Eddie House, attempted to talk his way into action with Clippers coach Doc Rivers, to no avail.
4. Complete game: Even with the Heat constantly blitzing with a second defender, Leonard proved too much to handle, including on a 3-pointer with 66 seconds left after the Heat had trimmed their 18-point deficit to five.
Leonard tied his career first-half high with six assists over the opening two periods.
While the Heat often defended Leonard with Butler as the primary defender, the Clippers provided a bit of load management by having Leonard open defensively on Heat center Meyers Leonard.
5. McGruder returns: Former Heat swingman Rodney McGruder was back for the first time as a visiting player after being released by the Heat the final week of last season in a tax-saving move that allowed them to sign Nunn the final day of 2018-19.
“It was one of the hardest moments,” Spoelstra said. “We had to do that on an airplane after a brutal loss in Toronto, when we still had a little bit of flickering of our playoff hopes, and he was one of the guys that we were connected with, guys like Rodney.”
McGruder, who closed with one point in 12 minutes, wound up with the type of lucrative free-agent contract from the Clippers that the Heat lacked the resources to offer.
“One of the great moments was in summer league,” Spoelstra said. “We’re all out in Vegas and we were at Top Golf and Rodney just signed his deal with the Clippers … we wanted to celebrate with him, and he came by and he got a hug from everybody on the staff. He’s that kind of guy.”