Heat Survive late raptors rally; move to 1-2
A two-game loss start sparked a 112-109 point win when the Raptors came to town. With a first win in the column, the Heat moves to 4th in the Division, behind teams that quite frankly shouldn’t be above the Heat.
The Heat scraped by a 3rd and 4th quarter run resulting in 33 points to Miami’s 21. Gary Trent jr led the way with 8 points in the quarter tying their leading scorer of the night; Pascal Siakam. Miami’s defense is starting off slow, ranked 20th, and allowing isolation scorers in Derozan, Tatum, and now Siakam to play to their strengths and beat the defense. A defensive rating of 115 won’t cut it, and without that Heat defense, this team won’t stand to reach their aspirations this season.
With the Heat having the 8th hardest schedule in the NBA, and in a stacked eastern conference where each and every one of those games is important to get homecourt advantage, it’ll be interesting, to say the least how coach Spo will tinker and bring this team to the position it can be in.
Miami got to an early start, with 71 points to the raptor’s 50 to close the half led by Lowry’s 17. Jimmy got going later in the game once the offense slowed with 24 and strus once again with another 20-point game. To lose a 21-point game in today’s league isn’t hard with the utilization of the 3-ball in today’s league but the Heat scraped by 3 points when the Heat outplayed the Raptors for 48 minutes.
But what truly killed the Heat Saturday was the 16-6 turnover splits, with most of them coming in the second half. With 7 of them unforced as well. Coming from mostly starters, when the offense seemed to slow it crashed; Bam and Kyle combined for 6 of 12 turnovers.
Contributions by former Heat member Precious Achuiwa for one with 18 points off the bench, hitting 2 threes and getting to the cup for the rest. Free Throw disparity took a part as well, the raptors got to the line 1 more time with 28 free throws but only converted them at a 75% clip. Saturday’s game was could’ve easily gone the other way, with momentum swinging the other way for the rest of the night. But all and all the Heat get it done at home, they have to prepare themselves for a rematch in their building against this very team.