Heat opens important week with quality win over Knicks. Takeaways and postgame reaction
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 109-99 win over the New York Knicks (44-31) on Tuesday night at Kaseya Center to open a two-game homestand. The Heat (42-33), which has won three straight games, closes the homestand on Thursday against the Philadelphia 76ers:
The Heat began an important week with one of its best wins of the season.
Miami led by 16 points midway through the third quarter, but the game still came down to the final minutes.
With the Heat ahead by 12 points with 8:55 left in the fourth quarter, the Knicks went on a 12-0 run to tie the game at 92 with 3:59 to play. The Heat went 5:07 of game clock without scoring during the Knicks’ fourth-quarter spurt.
But Haywood Highsmith made a timely three-pointer to end the scoreless drought, putting the Heat back ahead by three points with 3:48 left.
“I got confidence in myself right now, so I just let it fly,” said Highsmith, who scored seven of his 14 points in the fourth quarter. “We needed a bucket at the time and I’m glad I could come through for my team in that moment.”
Highsmith’s shot marked the start of a 17-7 run for the Heat to close the game and escape with the victory.
Despite the shaky finish, the bottom line is the Heat came away with an important win in its late-season push to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament.
“More than anything, this was an introduction to our new players ... to Heat-Knicks,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “This is what these games are. It’s going to be back and forth all game long. Teams will get a double-digit lead, the other team will come back. That’s what happens. But you have two teams that are very committed to doing tough things, particularly on the defensive end, and it’s tough to generate wide open looks.”
The Heat’s defense was dominant throughout the game, limiting a quality Knicks offense to 99 points.
Heat defenders like Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Caleb Martin and Highsmith made things tough for Knicks All-Star guard Jalen Brunson, who finished with 20 inefficient points on 5-of-18 shooting from the field and 1-of-6 shooting from three-point range.
On the other end of the court, Terry Rozier led the Heat’s offense with a game-high 34 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field and 8-of-11 shooting from behind the arc.
Butler added 17 points, five rebounds and six assists. Adebayo contributed 15 points and nine rebounds.
The Heat’s defense set the tone from the start, holding the Knicks to just 43 first-half points to enter halftime with 15-point lead. The Knicks scored fewer than 100 points on Tuesday for the first time since March 16.
The Heat improved to 13-1 this season when holding its opponent under the 100-point mark.
With Tuesday’s effort, the Heat moved into the top five in defensive rating. The Heat now holds the NBA’s fifth-ranked defensive rating, allowing 111.6 points per 100 possessions this season.
The Heat also outscored the Knicks 51-36 from three-point range behind 17-of-38 (44.7 percent) shooting on threes.
Donte DiVincenzo scored a team-high 31 points for the Knicks.
The Knicks have now dropped three straight games, but still sit in fifth place in the Eastern Conference and just 1.5 games behind the third-place Cleveland Cavaliers.
“This felt like a playoff game,” Highsmith said.
Rozier continued his best stretch in a Heat uniform.
Rozier scored more than 20 points for the third straight game, finishing Tuesday’s win with 34 points on 15 field-goal attempts. It’s the most points he has scored since joining the Heat.
“I feel like I can score the ball pretty well and it was just one of those nights,” Rozier said.
Rozier actually scored 20 points in Tuesday’s first half, shooting 6 of 8 from the field, 5 of 6 from three-point range and 3 of 3 from the foul line in the first two quarters.
Rozier’s eighth three of the night put the game away, as he hit a contested three late in the shot clock to give the Heat an eight-point lead with 34.7 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
“We just all appreciate his ability to shot create and make shots in those situations,” Spoelstra said.
After Tuesday’s performance, Rozier is averaging 27.7 points per game on 56.3 percent shooting from the field and 19-of-32 (59.4 percent) shooting on threes over the last three games.
Since the Charlotte Hornets traded Rozier to the Heat on Jan. 23, this is the best he’s played. He has scored more than 20 points in six games since joining the Heat and three of them have come in the last three games.
Kevin Love returned to his backup center spot in the Heat’s rotation, logging his first game minutes in more than a month.
After missing 14 straight games with a bruised right heel, Love returned to be available for the two games prior to Tuesday’s matchup against the Knicks. But Love did not play in either game.
Instead, the Heat continued to play Thomas Bryant as the backup center in Friday’s win over the Portland Trail Blazers and Sunday’s victory over the Washington Wizards.
But Love was back in the mix on Tuesday against the Knicks, playing in his first game since Feb. 27.
Love recorded eight points, three rebounds and three assists in 16 minutes off the Heat’s bench in his return. He shot 2 of 7 from three-point range.
Love started strong, too, making his first shot attempt — a three-pointer from the left wing with 1:07 left in Tuesday’s first quarter. He went on to make his first two shots from three-point range before missing his final five threes.
With Love back in the rotation, Bryant did not play. Tuesday marked Bryant’s first DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) since March 10.
“This is what depth is all about,” Spoelstra said. “Obviously, we’ve used all of our depth, but the depth becomes a little bit more complex when you have more guys available. And [Bryant] has really given us such tremendous minutes the last six weeks while Kevin was out. Kevin gives us something different. It spaces the floor in a different way.”
The Heat went with a bench rotation of Martin, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Love and Highsmith against the Knicks.
This is the healthiest the Heat has been in a long time.
Only two Heat players were unavailable for the Heat against the Knicks: Tyler Herro (right foot medial tendinitis) and Josh Richardson (right shoulder surgery).
For a Heat team that entered Tuesday with the fifth-most missed games in the league this season due to injury at 256 games, according to Spotrac’s injury tracker, this is a welcomed development.
And while Richardson is out for the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on his shoulder in early March, the hope is Herro will make his return before the end of the regular season.
Herro, who missed his 19th straight game on Tuesday, resumed on-court workouts last week after receiving a platelet-rich plasma injection to treat his injured foot on March 15.
Meanwhile, the Knicks were without two of their best players on Tuesday: OG Anunoby (right elbow tendinopathy) and Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder).
More tough games are ahead for the Heat as it works to avoid the NBA’s play-in tournament.
Tuesday marked the start of a four-game stretch against teams currently with winning records. After the Heat’s win over the Knicks, it hosts the 76ers on Thursday before hitting the road to take on the Houston Rockets on Friday and Indiana Pacers on Sunday.
Making things even tougher is the fact that reigning NBA MVP Joel Embiid is expected to be available for the 76ers on Thursday against the Heat.
Embiid, who missed 29 straight games following left meniscus surgery, made his return for the 76ers in Tuesday’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. Embiid finished his return with 24 points, six rebounds and seven assists in 29 minutes.
“It don’t do nothing but help us for the playoffs,” Adebayo said of this challenging stretch. “It helps us really lock in before we get there. It’s a good pre-playoffs for us.”
As for the standings, Tuesday’s win moved the Heat closer to sixth place.
With the No. 6 Pacers idle on Tuesday, the seventh-place Heat (42-33) moved from one game to just a half-game behind the sixth-place Pacers (43-33) in the East standings.
But the Heat was not able to add to its lead over the No. 8 76ers because the 76ers also won on Tuesday. The seventh-place Heat remains 1.5 games ahead of the eighth-place 76ers (41-35).
The Pacers, Heat and 76ers are battling for the sixth spot in the East, with the top-six seeds in each conference going straight to the playoffs without needing to take part in the NBA’s play-in tournament.
There are seven games left on the Heat’s regular-season schedule.
