Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Heat finish Orlando summer league 0-5 and head to Las Vegas summer league.
MIAMI — The Miami Heat went into the Orlando Pro Summer League with a roster short on NBA experience and it showed, finishing 0-5 with Thursday’s 91-72 loss to the New York Knicks.
Reduced to playing in an 8 a.m. game on the Orlando Magic practice court at the Amway Center because of the winless records of both teams going into the event’s championship day, the Heat trailed 22-14 at the end of the first quarter and 48-30 at halftime.
“We’re learning every day,” Heat summer-league coach Chris Quinn told reporters after the game. “We’re all getting better, including myself. So it’s a new experience for a lot of us. I thought most of the week our guys played really hard, gave us all they got. Today was a little setback. We didn’t put together a great game for 40 minutes.”
After solid efforts in his three previous outings, Heat first-round pick Bam Adebayo struggled Thursday, missing his first nine shots and closing 1 of 10 from the field, but 11 of 14 from the foul line, for 13 points, with three rebounds and two blocked shots.
Forward Okaro White, a 2016-17 rookie who is the lone player on the Heat summer roster with NBA experience, finished with 12 points on 5-of-13 shooting and 12 rebounds.
“I thought ’Ro did a pretty good job of fighting through it,” said Quinn, an assistant on Erik Spoelstra’s staff who is serving as summer-league head coach for the first time. “He still had double-digit rebounds, affected the game in other ways. And that’s what ’Ro is capable of doing.
“Bam, you saw a stretch there at the end is the Bam we expect — he was on the offensive glass, he was drawing fouls. He was playing with the energy we needed out of him.”
Adebayo and White each were coming off 29-point efforts in their previous outings.
Two of the Heat’s better efforts Thursday came from undrafted Central Florida guard Matt Williams, who finished with 14 points, and undrafted Virginia guard London Perrantes, who scored 11.
Williams, a 3-point specialist, closed 4 of 13 from behind the arc.
Williams had missed the first three games of the event due to an ankle sprain, but had impressed Quinn during the three-day camp at AmericanAirlines Arena that preceded the Orlando league, including taking notes on sets while sidelined.
“You can see he’s getting his legs under him, he’s getting a little more comfortable out there,” Quinn said. “He was able to make some shots, which helps. We need the shooting that he can give us and we look forward to seeing more out of him.”
Guard Chasson Randle, who spent time last season with the Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers, scored 18 points for the Knicks. Undrafted Florida 3-point specialist Canyon Barry added six points for New York.
The Heat next open play Saturday at the Las Vegas summer league at 8 p.m. Eastern against a similar group of rookies and young players from the San Antonio Spurs, a game that will be televised on ESPNU.
For Quinn, the priority remains development.
“We always prioritize development,” he said. “That’s what every day is about — trying to get better, trying to get individual players better, trying to get better as a team, trying to get better as a coaching staff. So that’s what we’re all about.”