Heat throw extra-special house party
Dragic: ‘I don’t know how we won’ after they improve to 7-0 in OT, 19-1 at home
MIAMI — Not in this house. And never in overtime. Basically, the Sacramento Kings found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time Monday at AmericanAirlines Arena.
So make it 19-1 at home and 7-0 in overtime for the Miami Heat after a game salvaged at the end of regulation turned into 118-113 victory.
“If I’m honest,” Heat guard Goran Dragic said, “I don’t know how we won that game.”
A reasonable notion considering the Heat trailed by eight midway through the fourth quarter, committed 21 turnovers and yielded 16 offensive rebounds, which left the Kings with a staggering 23 more shots, 106 to 83.
And yet, when precision was required most, it was there.
A Bam Adebayo dunk off a perfect Dragic inbounds lob with 1.9 seconds left in regulation allowed the Heat to force the extra period.
“We executed perfectly,” Dragic said of his pass from the left sideline. “If you ran it a couple of times, it couldn’t have gone better.”
Oh, and one more element.
“We never practiced it,” Dragic added.
Guard Kendrick Nunn led the Heat with 25 points, with forward James Johnson adding 22, Dragic 18 and Adebayo a 16-point, 11-rebound double-double.
Playing in the absence of Jimmy Butler, who was held out with a sore right hip, the Heat were pushed to the limit, just as they were in recent losses to the Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks and, Sunday the San Antonio Spurs.
This time, they flipped the script, as they seemingly always do at home, and always have done in overtime this season.
Overtime proved to be as much of a scramble as the close of regulation, with a Nunn 3-pointer with 1:55 left putting the Heat ahead, 114-113.
The Heat got a pair of stops from there, with Nunn then sent to the line with 9.3 seconds left, converting both free throws for a 116-113 lead.
A Kings turnover followed, as did a defensive scramble, with Nunn closing the scoring with a pair of free throws.
Down, 89-81, in regulation the Heat got a pair of 3-pointers by Johnson to move within, 103-100, with 1:12 to play in the fourth. Then, unlike Sunday in San Antonio, Duncan Robinson this time converted a tying 3-pointer with 29 seconds left in the fourth for a 103-103 tie.
But that’s when after a scramble, the Kings came up with a layup from forward Nemanja Bjelica with 1.9 seconds to play in regulation for a two-point Sacramento lead.
And then, that Dragic-Adebayo inbound perfection, with the Heat closing out the scoring at, 105-105, in regulation with eight-tenths of a second to play.
“All I had to do was put the ball in the basket,” Adebayo said.
Five degrees of Heat from Monday’s game:
1. To the point: While Nunn has served as the de facto point guard since the start of the season, it often was with Butler and Adebayo handling the majority of ballhandling.
With Butler out, it cast Nunn in more of a playmaking role, with six Nunn turnovers resulting.
Nunn found his rhythm once Dragic entered, able to then display more of his scoring and allaround game, closing with seven rebound and six assists.
2. Zoned out: The Heat zone defense no longer is gimmick, but arguably now the team’s base defense off made shots and dead balls.
With Butler out, the Heat were at a decided deficit when it came to individual defenders, especially as they went deeper into the rotation, with Derrick Jones Jr. starting.
The Kings clearly arrived ready for the approach, moving the ball deftly for a series of open 3-point attempts, including 25 in the first half, a Kings record for attempts in any half.
The Kings’ Buddy Hield hit two 3-pointers early in overtime, and those also came against the
Heat zone.
“You could see they were prepared for our zone,” Dragic said. 3. Down goes Jones: Making his second start of the season, both in place of Butler, Jones was down for an extended period late in the third quarter after an inadvertent blow to the face from Kings guard Cory Joseph during a rebound scramble.
The Kings failed to score during their 5-on-4 possession, with the officials then blowing play dead once the Heat regained possession, with Jones face down beyond the offensive baseline.
Jones then immediately was taken to the locker room, poked in both eyes.
“It wasn’t on purpose,” said Jones, who returned at the end of overtime. “We were both going for the ball.”
4. In other words, never: With Butler and Justise Winslow out, and with Robinson forced to retreat to the locker room in the second quarter before returning to the start of the second half, and Jones sidelined late in the third, there still was no movement from the Heat bench for Dion Waiters.
Waiters did not come out with teammates for pregame shooting or at halftime. He joined teammates pregame in time for introductions and emerged from the locker room just prior to the whistle to open play in the third quarter.
5. Stepping up: To his credit, after spending time in the same doghouse as Waiters, Johnson made the most of his time in the absence of Winslow.
“He had his fingerprints on so many of those plays down the stretch,” Spoelstra said.
Said Johnson, “I trusted in my work.”