Heat vs Raptors: Behind the box score
By Wes Goldberg
Diving into the box score of the Miami Heat’s loss to the Toronto Raptors.
Toronto Raptors (17-11) 108
Miami Heat (15-10) 94
13 – The Heat committed 13 turnovers, eight of which were committed by Dwyane Wade. We could end the story right here. Done. (Color guy voice) “You aren’t going to win many games committing that many turnovers, Bob.” It’s hard to say what was going on with Wade, but the Raptors length certainly bothered him at times. He also dribbled the ball off his foot or the ball would slip out of his hands at times, and I’m not sure why that happened. Off day, maybe. In hindsight, it was a questionable decision to allow Wade to handle the ball so much down the stretch, when he ended up hijacking the offense at times and turning the ball over more.
10-of-17 for 30 – A night after his game winner was waived off because his team took a timeout, DeMar DeRozan did everything he could to make sure his shots counted. DeRozan took advantage of many missed rotations by the Heat and didn’t miss many shots (58.8 percent on the night).
DeRozan has taken a step forward this season, and is one of the league’s top 10 scorers in the NBA.
15 – Hassan Whiteside is one the NBA’s top rebounders, but he was outdone by Bismack Biyombo. Biyombo finished with four offensive rebounds, 15 total. Whiteside had just one offensive board and 13 total. As we know, Whiteside needs to dominate when he’s on the court, and a guy like Biyombo–who isn’t bad, by the way–can’t show him up.
34 – Luol Deng, after recently embracing playing small-ball power forward, is becoming one of the more important players on the Heat. He unlocks cool lineups for them which allow for better pacing and spacing, and Deng played a team-high 34 minutes against the Raptors. He finished with nine points on two of nine shooting, both of his makes coming from beyond the arc. In fact, Deng attempted five 3s. It’s obvious Erik Spoelstra is trying to make Deng a stretch-4, so expect a lot more of this going forward.
55% – Speaking of 3-point shooting, Gerald Green was responsible for five of the Heat’s nine made 3-pointers (55 percent) in the game. Green himself hit on five of his 10 attempts. As always, Green had the green light to shoot when he wanted. Spoelstra is trying to recapture the magic of the Big Three’s inverted offense, and the front line group of Chris Bosh, Deng, Green and Justise Winslow attempted 19 of Miami’s 25 3s in the game.
12-1 – The loss marks the first time that Chris Bosh has lost to his former team since he left the Raptors to join the Heat in 2010. Womp womp.