Shooting woes doom efforts in 2 straight losses
CHARLOTTE — Tyler Herro sunk a layup to get the Miami Heat even with the Charlotte Hornets at 15 points apiece with 4:19 left in the first quarter on Saturday night.
Then Max Strus missed a three, and Caleb Martin missed a layup. Strus missed again, then Victor Oladipo, then Duncan Robinson and Bam Adebayo each missed shots. Martin missed a three, and the quarter ended, but when the second quarter began, the story remained the same.
Miami went nearly six minutes without making a shot from the field before an Adebayo dunk with 10:24 left in the second quarter. The Heat missed nine consecutive shots from the field. While they were struggling to sink shots, Charlotte took a 31-16 lead. The Hornets eventually built a 22-point lead, and while the Heat came back to tie the game later, they never got back ahead in the 108-103 loss to the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference after starting their post-All-Starbreak portion of the season with a dud against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night.
“We lost. I don’t care if we were down 30 or we lose by 30 or lose by one. We lost,” star forward Jimmy Butler said. “I don’t think anybody in here wants to lose. We’ve got to figure this out very, very quickly.”
After shooting at a 44.3% clip in their five games before the All-Star break, the Heat have made 39.5% of shots in their past two losses. By the end of Saturday’s game, the Heat had improved their shooting percentage to 40%. They made 30.8% of their three-point attempts. Both numbers are below Miami’s season averages of 45% and 33.1%, respectively.
“It’s tough. But we set ourselves up, we put ourselves in that position in the first quarter,” Herro said. “From there, we had to pick up our intensity, pick up our disruptiveness on both ends. It puts us in a hole and it’s tough to get out of, especially in this league with a bunch of good teams and a bunch of good players. That’s on us as players to bring our best efforts every night.
“Sometimes it doesn’t go your
way, but we got to bring our energy for the most important parts of every game.”
Butler was the team’s best shooter on the night, making 6 of his 8 shots. Herro buoyed Miami’s percentage from behind the arc, notching 6 of 12 threes to help keep Miami in the game.
Aside from Herro, the rest of the Heat shot 20.8% from three (5 of 24).
“He was important for us,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He got to his spots. It just sucks that we couldn’t find a way to figure this out and get the win.”
The Heat did not get key crucial contributions from their bench, with the reserves going 4 for 19 from the field and 1 for 11 from three.
“That first quarter was pretty ugly,” Spoelstra said. “But then after that, I actually liked the shots we were getting. We just weren’t able to knock them down. It felt like we were missing layups and open threes, but the intention was right. Guys were playing the right way and then we started to get in a better rhythm in the second quarter.”
The Heat have a chance to salvage this three-game road trip, traveling to Philadelphia to face the 76ers on Monday night. Philadelphia (39-20) is the No. 3 team in the East and is coming off a heartbreaking 110-107 loss to first-place Boston on Saturday that ended with a last-second three by Jayson Tatum.
“First and foremost, we need to hit shots,” veteran forward Kevin Love said. “We need to play a collective game, all of us, everybody who’s in the rotation right now, just making sure that we’re making those extra efforts. You didn’t see that . ... But we’re more than capable. Definitely more than capable.”