Heat suffer second brownout
A road trip that started
NEW YORK — so promising with the Heat winning
the first two games ended with a thud after two humiliating losses.
For the second consecutive night, Miami fell behind by at least 20 points in the first half and never recovered. The result was an embarrassing 115-86 loss to the New York Knicks on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden, even with the Knicks playing all but 2½ minutes without their best player, Kristaps Porzingis, who was helped off the court after spraining his right ankle.
The Heat (10-11) appeared to put these types of performances behind them with victories last week against the Celtics and Timberwolves. But after escaping with a close win against the worst team in the league, Chicago, on Sunday, Miami embarrassed itself on consecutive nights in Cleveland and New York (11-10).
“It’s the very best and the very worst
of what we’ re capable of. It’s as simple as that ,” coach Erik Spoelstra said.
While Miami at least cut into the de fifi cit in Cleveland, Wednesday’ se ff ff ff ff ff ff or twas pitiful from start tofi finish in its worst loss of the season.
The Knick send ed the half on a 9-0 run to take a 21- point lead, thefi final two on a 21- foot buzzer-beater by Tim Hard away Jr ., who caught along pass from Jarrett Jack and fl flipped the ball toward the basket in one motion. Hard away then did the shimmy, which Heat fans know all too well from seeing the same dance from his father for so many years.
Center En es Kanter led the K nicks with 22 points and 14 rebounds as the K nicks outscored the Heat 58-32 in the paint and shot 60.3 percent.
The Heat, who were without center Has san White side, shot just 38.1 percent. Kelly Olynyk led Miami with 18 points.
“We’ve just got to be more consistent, both ends of the fl floor everywhere ,” Olynyk said .“We’ re really, really up and down. It’s like we’ re two di ff ff ff ff ff ff e rent teams .”
Here are our five take-a ways:
Disappointing ending: The Heat appeared to be on their way to a solid road trip after winning the fifirst two games, butfi finished 2-2 after Miami played two of its worst games of the season. Miami led for a total of 50 seconds combined in the two games and in both fell behind by at least 20 points in the fifi rs th alfa nd 30 points in the third quarter. Now what? The Heat come home for games against Charlotte and Golden State before another three game trip that concludes a stretch of 14 of 19 games on the road.
“It’s hard to fifififigure out this team right now ,” Spoelstra said. “That’s what I’m trying to really fifigure out, one game to the next. And it clearly was not the same team that started the road trip from a defensive standpoint. And, at the same time, it can be that the next game. That’s what is so hard to fifig- ure out about this group.”
Another slow start: Earlier this season, second halves were killing the Heat. The past two games, the Heat appear to be sleepwalking through the start of the game, digging themselves a deep hole from which they could not recover. After falling behind by 27 in the second quarter at Cleveland on Tuesday, the Knicks dominated Wednesday’s first half, shooting 58.5 percent and outrebounding Miami 28-17. Of course, there was the ultimate embarrassing start Sunday in Chicago, when Miami set a franchise low for first-quarter points with seven.
Defenseless: The Heat pride themselves on the defensive end and slowly were getting back to the type of defense that allowed them to make a run during the second half last season. Then came the past two nights. Cleveland shot 49.4 percent for the game, but the Cavs built their lead in the first three quarters, when they shot 54.1 percent. The Knicks were even better, and improved as the game went along.
Porzingis injury: The 7-foot-3 power forward was injured when Justise Winslow stepped on his right ankle as he went to save a ball from going out of bounds. Porzingis slammed the floor with his fist and had to be helped to the locker room. X-rays were negative and Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek said Porzingis wanted to come back and play. Porzingis as the league’s fourth-leading scorer with a 27.0 average. The Knicks, though, never skipped a beat.
Replacing Whiteside: The Heat center sat out because of concern over his left knee. Rookie Bam Adebayo received his fourth start in Whiteside’s place. The 6-foot-10 Adebayo was matched up with the 6-11 Kanter, who returned after missing three games because of back spasms. After scoring 19 points off the bench Tuesday, Adebayo had nine points and five rebounds Wednesday.