CHAMP-MELTING HEAT COOL JAZZ; WITHOUT NURSE, RAPTORS SCORE
As far as streaks go, Miami’s current five-game run is not the most impressive, not even for the season.
The attention the Heat are generating so far is because of who they have beaten recently. In the past week, Miami has beaten two of the NBA’s most recent champions—the Toronto Raptors and the defending titlists Los Angeles Lakers.
On Friday, Jimmy Butler scored a season high 33 points as Miami beat the squad that has assembled the best win run so far in the NBA by cooling league-leading Utah, 124-116.
“I don’t want to say that we’re good yet,” Butler said. “We’ve got so much more that we can be better at. Myself, anybody, I don’t want us to get complacent and think that we’re cool.”
Goran Dragic scored 26 points, center Bam Adebayo had 19 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists in the win.
“We just tried to take away their easy shots,” Dragic said. “And we did.”
Donovan Mitchell shot 11of-26 from the field and finished with 30 points for the Jazz, who dropped to 26-7 overall, but still have the best record in the NBA.
The Jazz missed their last seven shots and were threefor - 16 from the floor in the final eight minutes.
“We just made a lot of mistakes, had too many breakdowns on both ends,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said.
In Tampa, Kyle Lowry recorded a triple double as the Toronto Raptors beat the Houston Rockets, 122-111, despite missing six members of their coaching staff, including head coach Nick Nurse.
The Raptors announced just prior to the game that the six would be unavailable for the NBA contest because of COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Toronto forward Pascal Siakam also sat out the game due to the same protocols.
The 53-year-old Nurse, who is the reigning league coach of the year, is in his third season as Toronto’s head coach. Assistant coach Sergio Scariolo took charge of the Raptors bench.
Lowry finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists to post his 16th career triple-double as a Raptor.
Elsewhere, Kemba Walker scored a season-high 32 points as the Boston Celtics recovered from a slow start to defeat the Indiana Pacers, 118-112.
Daniel Theis had 17 points and Jaylen Brown 15 as the Celtics snapped a three-game slide.
“We had a slow start, but we stuck together. That was the best part about it. The only way you can get out of struggles is by doing it together,” said Walker.