Postgame grades: Miami Heat trounced by Utah Jazz, 102-91
By Frank Urbina
The Miami Heat lost to the Utah Jazz tonight, 102-91, and fall to 2-6 on the season. With a trip to San Antonio on the docket, this season is going to get uglier before it gets better.
118. 91. 110. Final. 102
After a nice first half by Miami, which saw them go toe-to-toe against one of the better teams in the Western conference, the offense simply imploded in the third quarter. The Heat couldn’t get anything to fall; jumpers, layups, free throws, nothing would go down.
Credit should be given to the Utah Jazz who are one of the better defensive teams in the NBA. However, they were without their starting point guard George Hill, who is an avid defender and a 20 point-per-game scorer this season. Also, their starting power forward Derrick Favors, who is a force inside, played 5 minutes before tweaking his knee and missing the rest of the game.
It would’ve been nice to see Miami take advantage of those two major losses and make it interesting late, but they simply got manhandled in the second half. The third quarter saw the Heat shoot 26% from the field (6-of-23 to be exact), and allow their deficit to grow from 5 to an insurmountable 17. Utah held Miami to 12 points in the period, and they never looked back.
Goran Dragic did miss the game for Miami with a sprained left ankle, and there’s no doubt his presence would have been beneficial during the second half.
On the night, the Heat only made 5 threes (shooting 29% from deep) and missed 9 of their 19 free throw attempts. Those two statistics directly correlate with how teams lose basketball games.
The Heat are simply a mess on offense. Miami is a league-worst 51% at shots within 5-feet of the basket. The team also really struggles at getting to the foul line. When they do, they don’t convert their chances anyways: the team shoots FT’s at a 71% clip, which is the second worst percentage in the NBA.
It’s going to take a lot for Miami to turn this around and start scoring at a respectable clip. Most of their key players are young though, so there’s definitely a chance they start translating their easy opportunities into made baskets.
Gordan Hayward led the way for Utah, dominating whoever Miami put in front of him. He finished with 25 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists. Rudy Gobert was a monster down low, finishing with 12 points, 12 rebounds and 2 blocks. Defensively, he made life really difficult for Hassan Whiteside.
We look further into the Heat’s individual night’s here in the post-game grades:
HASSAN WHITESIDE. C. Whiteside put up decent numbers again, but they were pretty hollow. He finished with 15 points, 14 rebounds and 2 blocks, as well as an assist. He shot 6-of-13 from the floor, and continued to struggle from the FT line, missing 3 of his 6 attempts. His plus/minus was a team worst -24. He seemed to get benched pretty early on in the third quarter, once Utah went on their 15-0 run. I have no idea if that was due to poor effort though, or if Spoelstra wanted to space the floor a little bit with Josh McRoberts (more on him in a bit). We’ve come to expect more from Hassan, and tonight was not one of his better games.. C. Miami Heat
Miami Heat. JUSTISE WINSLOW. C -. After taking a nice step forward versus the Chicago Bulls, Winslow seemed to regress to his season form tonight. He scored 11 points, but it took him 13 shot attempts to do so. He missed his only three-point try, and also picked up 5 fouls trying to stay in front of Gordon Hayward and Rodney Hood. What hurts the most about Winslow (right now at least) is his inability to finish his layup opportunities. Often, he’ll have a strong drive to the basket, leave a defender in his dust, only to see the ball go in-and-out once it reaches the rim. Expecting Winslow to make jumpers at an efficient rate this season would be unfair to the 20-year-old, but his layups need to start dropping for Miami’s offense, and his own, to greatly improve.<br />. SF
PG/SG. Miami Heat. JOSH RICHARDSON. C. Like Winslow, Richardson failed to follow up an impressive performance against the Bulls. Tonight, he struggled on the offensive end, shooting 38% from the floor, and wasn’t able to make a single three-pointer, something Miami sorely needs from him. On the defensive end, his tenacity got the best of him. He left his feet multiple times, crashing into Jazz players, and allowing them to go to the FT line. Richardson is young and he’s still finding his footing this season, so there is no doubt he will bounce back strong.
C. In his first minutes of the season, McRoberts displayed a level of rust that was to be expected, so his grade is based upon him finally getting healthy. He had 4 points, zero rebounds and 1 assist in 12 minutes of action. He took most of the back-up center minutes that had been handled by Willie Reed so far this year. Spoelstra is going to have to find a solid mix of playing time for McRoberts and Reed, because Miami will really struggle to defend and rebound with Josh on the floor. However, he gives Miami more spacing and better ball movement. Thankfully, I’m not the coach.. C. Miami Heat. JOSH MCROBERTS
SG. Miami Heat. DION WAITERS. F. Probably the worst game of the season for Waiters. He was an astounding -15 in his limited 18 minutes on the floor. Clearly, Spoelstra wasn’t happy with what Dion was giving the team on either end. He finished the night with 4 points, 2 assists and 2 turnovers. We are inevitably one step closer to Josh Richardson locking up the starting SG spot, at least once Goran Dragic returns from injury.
Similar to Dion, Tyler Johnson also had his worst outing of the year. He shot 2-for-7 and finished with 5 points in 29 minutes of action. He missed both of his three-point attempts, and had 4 assists on the night. Like Richardson, I fully expect Johnson to bounce back quickly.. PG/SG. Miami Heat. TYLER JOHNSON. D
A -. James Johnson had another nice outing. He made 6 of his 7 shots, and had 15 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists on the night. He’s starting to become a nice spark off the bench for Miami, and hopefully he can keep this run of form going into the future. The Heat are going to need all the help they can get to turn the offense around.. PF. Miami Heat. JAMES JOHNSON
Luke Babbitt was ineffective once again, going scoreless in 5 minutes of action, which led to Derrick Williams starting the second half. Williams played decently, finishing the night with 11 points and 4 rebounds. Rodney McGruder also had a respectable game; he defended pretty well and made 3 threes on his way to 14 points.
Next up for Miami is a trip to the AT&T Center to face the San Antonio Spurs on Monday night. Tip-off is at 8:30.