Heat on 6-game run
Miami tops Indiana; Johnson suspended.
INDIANAPOLIS — Have there been anything but close games for the Miami Heat lately? Certainly not this calendar year.
The pattern played out again Wednesday against the Indiana Pacers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, this time a 114-106 victory that extended the Heat’s winning streak to six.
This time it wasn’t all the way to the buzzer, as it was in Tuesday night’s onepoint victory over the Toronto Raptors at the start of this back-to-back road set, but it essentially went to the limit.
And Wayne Ellington again put himself in the middle of it all, this time with a 31-foot 3-pointer that bounded in just before the shot-clock buzzer with 23.2 seconds to play for a six-point Heat lead.
For the Heat, it again was a case of tying to make it work with an ensemble approach.
Goran Dragic led the Heat with 20 points, Hassan Whiteside added 16, with Ellington, Tyler Johnson and Bam Adebayo each scoring 15, Josh Richardson 14 and Kelly Olynyk 12. Both teams had to adjust their rotations. The Heat, in addition to the now-usual four sidelined players — Dion Waiters, Justise Winslow, Rodney McGruder and Okaro White — also were without forward James Johnson, who was suspended for the game for his Tuesday tussle in Toronto with Raptors forward Serge Ibaka.
The Heat, though, did have Tyler Johnson back in uniform, after he missed Tuesday’s game with a shoulder strain.
The Heat nonetheless stayed with Der-
rick Jones Jr. in their lineup for the second consecutive night, in place of Tyler Johnson, who entered for the first time late in the opening period.
The Pacers were without center Myles Turner due to an ankle injury, with Domantas Sabonis starting in his place.
The Heat found themselves in scramble mode after the Pacers trimmed a 90-80 Heat lead earlier in the fourth quarter to 97-95 with 5:39 to play and then tied it 97-97 with 5:01 left.
From there, Tyler Johnson stepped up with a 3-pointer for a 100-97 Heat lead, with Pacers guard Cory Joseph scoring inside to trim that edge to 100-99.
But up stepped Ellington with a jumper for a 102-99 Heat lead with 3:28 to play, followed by an Indiana timeout.
Then, after Victor Oladipo converted a pair of free throws to make it a one-point game, the Heat called a timeout of their own with 3:23 left.
Having been pushed to the shot-clock limit on previous possessions, the Heat then were called for a 24-second violation.
But after a defensive stop, the Heat to a putback basket from Whiteside for a 104-101 lead. That was followed by a Dragic jumper for a 106-101 Heat advantage, which Lance Stephenson countered with an inside basket to make it 106-103.
The game got further scrambled, with the Heat then getting the 31-footer from Ellington just before the expiration of the shot clock with 23.2 seconds to play.
A pair of Oladipo free throws then drew the Pacers within 109-104 with 17.1 seconds left.
The Heat went into the fourth quarter up 84-78, with Ellington draining all three of his 3-point attempts in the quarter, after shooting 0 for 6 from beyond the arc in the first half.
An 11-0 run through the midpoint of the third period trimmed what had been a 16-point Pacers deficit to 65-63, leading to a Heat timeout, with Indiana later getting within a point in the period.
After the Pacers opened 0 for 10 on 3-pointers, Stephenson finally gave Indiana its breakthrough late in the third period.
The Heat pushed their lead to 16 in the second quarter and went into the intermission up 58-47. Dragic, Whiteside, Richardson and Adebayo all were in double figures in points by then, with Whiteside up to nine rebounds and Dragic to five assists.
About the only first-half struggle for the Heat was the shooting of Ellington, the hero of Tuesday’s victory in Toronto, who closed the first half with that 0 for 6 from the field, with the rest of his teammates 22 of 35.
Despite the overnight travel from Toronto and despite playing against an opponent that was off Tuesday, the Heat raced to a 38-26 lead at the end of the first quarter, their highest-scoring first quarter of the season.
Dragic was 4 of 5 for nine points, with three assists, for the Heat in that opening period.
It was the third game of the four-game season series. The Heat won the first meeting 112-108 Oct. 21 in their home opener, behind 23 points from Dragic. The Heat then were blown out 120-95 Nov. 19 at AmericanAirlines Arena, with the Pacers shooting 60 percent from the field.
The Heat entered having lost three in a row to the Pacers after winning the previous four. The Heat went in having lost their previous 10 visits to Bankers Life Fieldhouse, with their last win in Indiana coming on Feb. 14, 2012.
The game concluded the Heat’s sixth back-to-back set of the season, with a 3-3 record on the second nights of such pairings.
The game was the second in a stretch of 11 of 14 on the road for the Heat.
The game is the second on a four-game homestand for the Pacers, who are coming off Monday’s 109-96 victory over the Bucks.