Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Heat can’t overcome 49-point effort from Lillard.
Blazer hits nine 3-pointers, scores 49 as Miami falls to 9th
MIAMI — On a night the Heat could have moved back to .500 for the first time since the second game of the season, they instead fell from No. 7 to No. 9 in the Eastern Conference playoff race.
Such is their razor-thin margin of error, especially with Dion Waiters expected to now miss an extended period with a badly sprained left ankle.
With Damian Lillard blazing from distance and scoring when needed, the Trail Blazers handed the Heat only their second home loss since Jan. 1, with a 115-104 decision Sunday at American Airlines Arena.
“You have a great player who took his game to another level,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Lillard, who closed with 49 points. “We were playing uphill the majority of the night.”
And so 34-36 it is, falling out of a playoff seed by virtue of the tiebreaker the Detroit Pistons hold with the same record. Now the push for .500 becomes even more challenging, with games against the Toronto Raptors, Boston Celtics and Pistons to follow Tuesday’s home game against the Phoenix Suns.
“They came in here and took this game,” Spoelstra said.
Lillard nearly singlehandedly did to the Heat what the Heat had been doing to opponents from the 3-point line, shooting 9 of 12 from behind the arc on the way to a season high scoring total, on a night the Heat were 9 of 31 on 3-pointers.
“It was about who wanted it more and I think our team wanted it more tonight,” Lillard said. “I think the most important thing was my mind was right.
“I came on the court and I knew what I wanted to get done tonight.”
Spoelstra said he failed his team with his approach.
“Doing something different schematically, that’s on me,” he said. “There should have been an adjustment once he had 40. “That’s squarely on me.” It was the defense in general that disappointed Spoelstra.
“We have to score 116 now to win?” he asked. “We have to be able to hold teams under 100.”
Forward James Johnson led the Heat with 24 points, with Goran Dragic with 17 and center Hassan Whiteside 17 points and 10 rebounds in a foul-plagued performance.
Whiteside was not pleased with the whistle he received.
“I played the same defense I’ve been playing the whole time, man,” he said. “They thought it was a foul, I guess. I watch film on myself. I know NBA rules.”
With Waiters sidelined by the sprained left ankle sustained in Friday’s victory over the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves, Spoelstra elected to open with Josh Richardson at shooting guard. The Heat, though, never were able to muster the backcourt defense needed against the Blazers, with guard C.J. McCollum adding 18 points for Portland.
“J-Rich has been playing better,”’ Spoelstra said of starting Richardson ahead of 3-point specialist Wayne Ellington. “Our starting lineup, nothing will be in cement right now, particularly with Dion out.
“I really like what J-Rich is giving us right now, particularly defensively. It’s another ballhandler. That’s something we’ll build on.”
Without Waiters, the Heat were not able to generate much in the way of a drive-and-kick game, increasing the level of difficulty on their 3-point attempts.
“We definitely missed Dion out there,” Whiteside said, with Waiters saying before the game he hoped to make it back before the April 12 end of the regular season.
It was a night of frustration on multiple levels.
“Those guys didn’t let us come back,” James Johnson said. “Normally, we keep being physical the whole time and teams will crack. This team just didn’t.”
Even with Lillard’s performance, Johnson pointed to the Blazers’ 26 second-chance points.
“The second chance points got us,” he said. “They outhustled us, the loose balls, the 50-50 ball — they got more of those.
“It had nothing to with how Damian scored. They had 26 second chance points. If we cut that down even with his, we have a chance to win.”
Whiteside said the only option now is to move forward.
“It’s a tough loss,” he said. “It happens sometimes. Shots were falling for them and they weren’t falling for us.”
As was the case in the third period, the Blazers pushed to an early eightpoint lead in the fourth quarter and the Heat then closed back within one, this time on a Tyler Johnson 3-point play.
Lillard then moved to 7 of 9 on 3-pointers at a stage the Heat were 7 of 28.
And then came another twist, with Whiteside called for his fifth foul with 6:49 to play and the Heat down 92-89, seconds after Whiteside missed an inside attempt that could have drawn the Heat within one.
From there the Blazers matched their largest lead of the game at 99-91, and then made it 104-93 on a five-point possession that featured a Jusuf Nurkic inside basket and a Lillard 3-pointer of an offensive rebound.