Heat overcomes injuries, turnovers to earn double-digit win. Takeaways from victory over Hornets

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 115-104 win over the Charlotte Hornets (7-15) on Wednesday night at Kaseya Center to begin a four-game homestand. The Heat (14-10) continues the homestand with a matchup against the Chicago Bulls on Thursday (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun) on the second night of the back-to-back set:

The Heat needed to overcome a bunch of injuries and turnovers to earn Wednesday’s win.

The Heat again played without several rotation players, as Bam Adebayo (left hip contusion), Tyler Herro (right ankle sprain), Haywood Highsmith (lower back contusion), Nikola Jovic (G League), Josh Richardson (headache) and Dru Smith (season-ending knee injury) all missed the game.

That left the Heat with just 11 available players. But against the struggling Hornets, that was enough.

The Heat didn’t make it easy, though, turning in an uncharacteristically sloppy performance.

The Heat committed nine turnovers during an ugly first quarter that also included a bunch of missed shots around the rim and seven Hornets turnovers.

Wednesday’s nine first-quarter turnovers matched a Heat season-high for any quarter after also committing nine turnovers in two fourth quarters (Nov. 3 win over the Washington Wizards and Nov. 6 win over the Los Angeles Lakers) earlier this season.

The Heat went on to finish the first half with 14 turnovers, which is the most Miami has committed in any single half this season. Jimmy Butler (3 turnovers), Caleb Martin (2), Orlando Robinson (2), Duncan Robinson (2), Kyle Lowry (2) and Kevin Love (2) all committed multiple turnovers for the Heat in the first two quarters.

But the Heat still entered halftime with a 56-45 lead because Charlotte scored only six points off Miami’s 14 turnovers. Meanwhile, the Heat took advantage of the Hornets’ mistakes with 16 points off Charlotte’s 12 turnovers.

After falling behind by two points with 3:43 left in the second quarter, the Heat closed the first half on a 13-0 run to build that 11-point advantage at the break.

“I think we finished the first half extremely well,” Lowry said. “I know we turned the ball over. But we went on a [13-0] run. So we kind of balanced it out and figured out how to play.”

Things only got worse for the Hornets, as the Heat’s lead grew to as large as 21 points in the second half on the way to its fourth double-digit win of the season.

“It was a pretty ugly first half,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We basically went into halftime and everybody took five big breaths and just let out all that horrible basketball and see if we could come out and play a much better second half, and I thought we did. The third quarter was much more intentional.”

The Heat closed the game with a lineup of Martin, Duncan Robinson, Jamal Cain, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Thomas Bryant on the court for most of the fourth quarter. Butler and Lowry did not play in the final period.

“I thought it was important for that group to be able to try to manage that,” Spoelstra said. “Certainly if it would have gotten under 10, then I would have had to bring back Jimmy and probably Kyle. But I wanted to see if that group could stabilize and have an opportunity to finish this off to be able to grow.”

The Heat earned the 11-point victory despite committing a season-high 23 turnovers. But the Hornets only scored 13 points off those mistakes, while the Heat totaled 32 points off 21 Hornets turnovers and that proved to be one of the biggest differences in the game.

The Heat also outscored the Hornets 18-8 in second-chance points behind 17 offensive rebounds, as those extra opportunities made up for all the empty possessions that ended with turnovers.

Six Heat players finished with double-digit points in another balanced offensive effort.

Duncan Robinson scored a team-high 23 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field and 6-of-9 shooting on threes for the Heat.

In addition, Jaquez contributed 17 points, six rebounds and eight assists.

Lowry recorded 17 points on 5-of-5 shooting from the field, 4-of-4 shooting on threes and 3-of-3 shooting from the foul line.

Butler finished with 15 points, six rebounds and 10 assists.

The Hornets were again led by guard Terry Rozier, who recorded a game-high 28 points.

The Heat has been among the NBA’s best at limiting turnovers this season, entering with the league’s seventh-lowest turnover percentage (percentage of plays that end in a team’s turnover) at 13.2 percent.

But on Wednesday, the Heat overcame a rare high-turnover effort and its ongoing injury issues. Weirdly enough, the Heat is 2-0 this season when committing more than 20 turnovers in a game.

The Heat improved to 10-1 this season against teams that currently hold a sub-.500 record.

The Heat continues to make a high percentage of its three despite shooting threes at a lower volume.

One of the catalysts behind the Heat’s win was its efficient three-point shooting, finishing 15 of 30 (50 percent) from behind the arc. It marked Miami’s second-most efficient three-point shooting game of the season, only behind a 20-of-35 (57.1 percent) effort in a Nov. 22 road win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Heat outscored the Hornets 45-36 from three-point range on Wednesday, as Charlotte finished 12 of 31 (38.7 percent) from deep.

Duncan Robinson hit a game-high six threes and Lowry made all four of his three-point attempts to combine for 10 of the Heat’s 15 threes.

Three-point shooting has been at the center of the Heat’s winning formula this season, entering Wednesday’s game with the NBA’s third-ranked team three-point percentage (38.6 percent) after finishing last regular season with the league’s 27th-ranked team three-point percentage (34.4 percent).

But the Heat is shooting threes at a lower volume so far this season, with 35.3 percent of its shots coming from three-point range (NBA’s 15th-ranked three-point rate) compared to 37.5 percent (ninth-ranked three-point rate) last season.

“We got a team that can shoot the ball at a high level,” Lowry said following Wednesday’s win. “We shot 50 percent. We want to get more threes up. But the way that Charlotte plays, they don’t allow it. I feel good when we get the opportunity to shoot open shots.”

With so many players out, Cain and Bryant received rare opportunities to play extended minutes and they took advantage.

After three straight DNP-CDs (did not play, coach’s decision), Cain tied a season-high with 29 minutes off the bench for the short-handed Heat on Wednesday in only his seventh NBA appearance of the season.

Cain made the most of those minutes, scoring a season-high 14 points to go with three rebounds, one assist, two steals and one block.

Cain, 24, is on a two-way contract with the Heat for the second straight season after going undrafted out of Oakland University last year.

Bryant also played extended minutes off the Heat’s bench on Wednesday, tying a season-high with 11 points and setting a new season-high with nine rebounds in 16 minutes. It marked the most minutes he has played in nearly a month since logging 24 minutes in a Nov. 22 win over the Cavaliers.

Bryant has fallen out of the Heat’s rotation since beginning the season as the backup center, but proved to be effective in his minutes in Wednesday’s win. He joined the Heat as a free agent this past offseason.

“That they were able to fill in and play their roles, and add,” Spoelstra said when asked about Cain and Bryant’s minutes on Wednesday. “It’s never easy in this league for any player when your not necessarily consistently in the rotation and then all of a sudden your number is called.”

The Heat’s bench rotation against the Hornets included Cain, Bryant, Love and Jaquez. They combined to outscore the Hornets’ reserves 45-13.

Without half of its rotation on Wednesday because of injury issues, there’s optimism that the Heat will soon be getting healthier.

Without three members of its preferred starting lineup (Adebayo, Herro and Highsmith) and one key reserve (Richardson), the Heat was without four rotation players against the Hornets.

But the hope is that Adebayo and Herro will return soon, according to league sources familiar with the situation. Herro’s return is expected within the next week and Adebayo is also expected back before the end of December.

Adebayo sat out his fifth straight game and Herro missed his 16th straight game on Wednesday with their injuries.

As for Richardson, he could be available again as soon as Thursday against the Bulls on the second night of the home-back-to-back. Richardson was ruled out for Wednesday’s game after missing the team’s morning shootaround because of a headache.

The Hornets were also missing a chunk of their rotation on Wednesday, playing without Amari Bailey (G League), LaMelo Ball (right ankle sprain), Leaky Black (G League), Cody Martin (left knee injury recovery), Frank Ntilikina (left tibia non-displaced fracture), Nick Smith Jr. (G League) and Mark Williams (low back contusion).

The two matchups against the Hornets — in Charlotte on Monday and in Miami on Wednesday — marked the third time this season that the Heat has faced the same opponent in consecutive games. But for the first time this season, the Heat swept through this type of two-game set.

The Heat split its first two such sets of the season, defeating the Bulls in Chicago on Nov. 18 before falling to the Bulls in Chicago a few nights later on Nov. 20 and then beating the Indiana Pacers in Miami on Nov. 30 before losing to the Pacers in Miami on Dec. 2.

This time, the Heat earned a 116-114 win over the Hornets in Charlotte on Monday and came away with another win over the Hornets in Miami on Wednesday.

“You look for all these little opportunities for your team to take another step,” Spoelstra said of the accomplishment. “We haven’t been able to do it this year and not many teams have been able to do that. It’s a small thing, it’s not everything. But it’s something. And we wanted to be able to do that tonight.”

The Heat is now 3-0 against the Hornets this season. The final meeting of the teams’ four-game regular-season set comes on Jan. 14 in Miami.

Next up for the Heat is the fourth of these two-game sets against the same opponent, hosting the Bulls on Thursday and Saturday.

“With a back-to-back, it’s definitely all hands on deck,” Butler said of hosting the Bulls on Thursday on the back end of this back-to-back. “Everybody might not be feeling the best, but we got to go out there and we got to get our job done.”

The Heat plays the same opponent in consecutive games six times this regular season, with the final two sets coming against the Pistons in Detroit on March 15 and 17 and Raptors in Miami on April 12 and 14.