Heat falls to Magic in Orlando for first three-game skid since November. Takeaways and details

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 105-87 loss to the Orlando Magic (23-20) on Sunday night at Kia Center. After completing the quick one-game trip up the state, the Heat (24-19) now returns home to begin a short two-game homestand on Wednesday against the Memphis Grizzlies:

As the offense continues to struggle, the Heat has now lost three straight games for the first time since late November.

After entering January with the NBA’s 16th-ranked offensive rating behind the NBA’s third-best three-point percentage, the Heat’s offense has gone from average to bad.

The Heat entered Sunday with the league’s 28th-ranked offensive rating in January.

That trend continued against the Magic, with the Heat’s offense totaling a season-low 87 points on a season-worst 37.5 percent shooting from the field. Miami also shot just 12 of 37 (32.4 percent) on threes in the loss.

The Magic, which entered with the NBA’s fifth-best defensive rating for the season, scored 29 points off 18 Heat turnovers.

The result was the Heat’s third-worst single-game offensive rating of the season, scoring 95.6 points per 100 possessions in the loss.

“It definitely looks bad, feels bad,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said of the offense. “But we’re going to get through it. We always do.”

Sunday marked the fourth time in the last six games that the Heat has scored fewer than 100 points.

“In December we were trending in a better direction,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It’s just been a rough stretch for us offensively the last handful of games.”

The start on Sunday was especially ugly for the Heat’s offense, beginning the loss 7 of 30 (23.3 percent) from the field.

The Heat’s slow start included struggles at the rim and from behind the three-point line, opening 2 of 11 (18.2 percent) at the rim and 4 of 18 (22.2 percent) from three-point range to fall behind by as many as nine points in the first half.

The Heat finally finally found a rhythm late in the second quarter, making 7 of its final 10 shots of the first half to enter halftime shooting 35 percent from the field and trailing by only two points despite the rough offensive start. It helped that the Magic’s offense also ran into issues, shooting just 4 of 16 (25 percent) on threes and 6 of 11 (54.5 percent) from the foul line in the first half.

But that momentum did not continue in the third quarter. After the Heat tied the score at 52 just two minutes into the period, the Magic went on a 29-13 run to pull ahead by 16 points before entering the fourth quarter with a 12-point lead.

The Heat committed seven turnovers in the third quarter and the Magic took advantage to score 13 points off those mistakes.

It only got worse for the Heat from there.

The Magic built on its lead to go ahead by as many as 20 points in the fourth quarter to cruise to the blowout victory.

“You have to give Orlando a lot of credit,” Spoelstra said. “They were very physical tonight. They took us out of a lot of our normal relief actions and kind of blew up a lot of our movement, and we didn’t react with force and detail.”

Bam Adebayo scored a team-high 22 points on 8-of-17 shooting from the field for the Heat and also recorded 11 rebounds and seven assists.

Jimmy Butler added 15 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the field, four rebounds and two assists.

Herro contributed 12 points on 4-of-14 shooting from the field and 4-of-11 shooting from three-point range, one rebound and two assists.

“I feel like we just get stagnant,” Adebayo said. “We got guys coming back, we’ve had guys in and out of the lineup, we’ve had I don’t know how many different lineups. But the biggest thing for us is we’re in a rough patch right now and we got to dig our way out of it.”

The Magic was led by Paolo Banchero, who scored a team-high 20 points and grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds. Orlando’s entire starting lineup finished with double-digit points.

Veteran point guard Kyle Lowry played off the bench for the second straight game, as Spoelstra continues to explore a different rotation.

Lowry, who started in his first 35 appearances of the season, finished Sunday’s loss with two points on 1-of-9 shooting from the field and 0-of-6 shooting on threes, two rebounds and three assists in 25 minutes in his second consecutive game as a reserve.

Like the Heat, Lowry is also in the middle of a rough offensive stretch. He’s averaging just two points per game on 5-of-30 (16.7 percent) shooting from the field and 0-of-18 shooting on threes in the last five games.

“For me as a professional, of course I’m disappointed to have to adjust,” Lowry said after his second game as a reserve. “But I haven’t played well in the last couple weeks and I understand that coach has made a decision to try to move and shake some things and get in a different flow.”

With Lowry again playing off the bench, the Heat went with a starting lineup of Caleb Martin, Herro, Butler, Nikola Jovic and Adebayo on Sunday for the second straight game.

The Heat tied the Magic 10-10 in the first 6:21 of the game with this group on the court before turning to its bench for the first time.

The Magic then outscored the Heat’s starting lineup 16-10 to begin the second half before Spoelstra made his first substitution of the third quarter.

This starting lineup has posted a plus/minus of plus 3 in 25 minutes together in the last two games.

Jovic, who started his 10th straight game for the Heat after spending the first two months of the season out of the rotation, closed Sunday’s loss with two points on 1-of-4 shooting from the field and three rebounds in 15 minutes.

As for Lowry, he entered for his first action of the game to play the final 4:18 of the opening quarter and then remained on the court to play the first 5:16 of the second quarter.

Lowry entered for his first minutes of the second half with 3:39 left in the third quarter and played the rest of the game.

While Lowry hasn’t played off the bench much in the last decade, he did finish last season in a reserve role.

Gabe Vincent took over as the Heat’s starting point guard in February last season while Lowry missed extended time because of a left knee issue, and Vincent remained the starting point guard through the Heat’s run to the NBA Finals. This stretch marked the first time Lowry had been used off the bench since the 2012-13 season with the Toronto Raptors.

Lowry said after playing as a reserve for the first time this season in Friday’s home loss to the Atlanta Hawks that “hopefully it was a one game thing for me and I can get back in the starting lineup and continue to do what I’ve done this year.”

But it appears that Lowry will again need to get used to life as a reserve.

“I’m going with this right now,” Spoelstra said Sunday. “I think this is an interesting direction and I’ll do whatever we feel like we have to do in this second half of the season. We are not where we want to be. That’s not an indictment on one player.”

“Kyle has been great as a starter and really impactful last year off the bench. So this really isn’t about him. This is about us trying to get to a higher level on both ends of the court, but also offensively.”

Butler took and made more threes than usual on Sunday.

On the way to scoring 15 points on 10 field-goal attempts, Butler shot 3 of 5 from three-point range in the loss.

It marked the first time Butler has attempted a three in a game since Dec. 18, going without a three-point attempt in four straight appearances prior to Sunday. It also marked the first time he has hit multiple threes in a game since shooting 3 of 5 from deep in a Nov. 24 road loss to the New York Knicks.

While Butler hadn’t made or taken many threes lately before Sunday, he has been an efficient three-point shooter this season. He’s now shooting 23 of 58 (39.7 percent) on threes this season.

Butler, who is in his fifth season with the Heat, shot just 26.6 percent on 1.9 three-point attempts per game in his first four regular seasons with the team.

The Heat continues to play without rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr., but his return appears to be near.

Jaquez missed his fourth straight game with a strained left groin. These are the first four games that Jaquez has missed this season after playing in each of the Heat’s first 39 games.

The hope is that Jaquez will return this week, possibly as soon as during this upcoming two-game homestand that begins Wednesday against the Grizzlies and ends Thursday against the Boston Celtics.

“He’s progressing good,” Spoelstra said before Sunday’s game when asked for an update on Jaquez’s recovery. “I don’t have a timeline on him. But the trainers are encouraged.”

Jaquez’s impending return will help the Heat, as he has already established himself as an important part of the rotation. Before the injury, Jaquez led the NBA in total fourth-quarter minutes played.

Among NBA rookies this season, Jaquez entered Sunday ranked fourth in points per game (14), 13th in rebounds per game (3.9), seventh in assists per game (2.7), second in steals per game (1.1) and second in minutes per game (30.2). And among the five rookies who have attempted more than 10 field-goal attempts per game this season, Jaquez holds the second-best field-goal percentage (51.3 percent) behind only Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren.

Along with missing Jaquez, the Heat was also without Jamal Cain (G League), RJ Hampton (G League) and Dru Smith (season-ending knee surgery) against the Magic.

Meanwhile, the Magic was as healthy as it has been in weeks. The only player unavailable for the Magic was Gary Harris (right calf strain).

Magic forward Franz Wagner, who is the team’s second-leading scorer, returned to play on Sunday after missing the previous eight games with a sprained ankle. He closed the win with 19 points and five assists.

The Heat has dominated the Magic in recent seasons, but not on Sunday.

The Magic defeated the Heat on Sunday for just the fourth time in the teams’ last 17 matchups. This stretch dates back to the 2019-20 season.

This season, the Heat is 2-1 against the Magic. The final game of the teams’ four-game regular-season series is on Feb. 6 at Kaseya Center.