The Miami Heat have now lost three straight games in its first round series against the Charlotte Hornets.
Usually this is the part of the recap where I try to give you the general gist of how the game went before cracking into a few more specific observations. Since I don’t have the will to live anymore, let alone write this darn recap, I’m just gonna read off the notes I took during the game. Okay, here we go.
- 1Q: Oh hey Josh McRoberts is playing. Comes in as the second center ahead of Amar’e Stoudemire with 3:20 left in the first quarter. Throws a nice pass to Joe Johnson which leads to a score.
- 2Q features a 10-0 run for Charlotte, which the Heat follow up with a 10-1 run of their own.
- A couple of awesome highlights to close the first half. First Luol Deng’s dunk, then Dwyane Wade’s. Heat trail 49-47 at halftime.
- 3Q: … totally forgot I was keeping notes by this point, but I did tweet some insightful stuff like this
oh hai whiteside
— Wes Goldberg (@wcgoldberg) April 28, 2016
- Heat lead 70-65 heading into the fourth quarter.
Okay, at this point I blacked out with some combination of stress, nausea and either anger or joy, I can’t put my finger on it.
The Heat played really well in the fourth quarter, and then not so well. What? Were you coming for less generic analysis? Screw off, I’m barely making it through this. Anyway, here are some notes. I’ll try to type with one hand as I sip on this bourbon.
1. He was fouled
Might as well throw this in here. Wade got fouled on the last shot of the game and it didn’t get called. I know officiating is a hot topic, and I won’t blame the loss on the no-call, but it happened. Wade was livid at the end and I don’t blame him.
2. Defense –> Offense
The Heat did a good job controlling the open floor. By that, I mean they took ownership of it. By that, I mean they scores a bunch of points by pushing the ball down the court after defensive rebounds. They weren’t necessarily fastbreak points, but the Heat created their speed by turning and running once securing the ball.
No matter who grabbed the board, that player started pushing the ball down the court before finding a more appropriate ball handler. It worked, with the Heat scoring 25, 22 and 24 points in the first three quarters.
They got away from it in the second half of the fourth quarter. Why? I don’t freaking know. The Heat have a frustrating tendency to jump into the nearest pit of quick sand in the final few minutes.
Haven't liked how the Heat have slowed down in transition. Don't abort what got you here.
— Wes Goldberg (@wcgoldberg) April 28, 2016
3. Scoreless at the worst time
Remember those scoreless stretches we decided we couldn’t have? Yeah, well, apparently the Heat ignored that. After scoring eight points in about two and a half minutes between the 4:37 and 2:27 mark of the fourth quarter, the Heat didn’t score again after that.
Here’s Miami’s final possessions to end the game.
- Josh Richardson missed three-pointer (1:39)
- Luol Deng turnover (1:08)
- Josh Richardson missed three-pointer (0:43)
- Goran Dragic’s shot blocked by Kemba Walker (0:07)
- Dwyane Wade’s shot block by Courtney Lee (0:04)
The Heat slowed the ball down and walked it up the court rather than get out and run. I know the urge to control the clock is there but, geez, just score the ball and play good defense like you have all game.
4. The difference
Three-point shooting. The Heat aren’t good at it, and the Hornets are. That hasn’t been the case necessarily all series, but it was in Game 5. Charlotte made 50 percent of its three-point shots (12-of-24) while the Heat made 27.8 percent (5-of-18).
The Hornets shot the three-ball well in the final minutes in particular, making four in the final seven minutes.
5. Here’s the thing
The Heat did so many things right. They limited Jeremy Lin and Kemba Walker (11 and 14 points respectively) and were able to space out Charlotte’s defense by finding week-side shooters with good kick-outs and ball movement.
Dwyane Wade even scored 25 points, posting his best night of the playoffs so far.
But they just, kinda, fell apart in the end. It’s frustrating, it’s infuriating and it’s inexcusable. It’s why I’m two drinks in just writing this. The Heat have now dropped three straight games in the series after leading 2-0. Game 6 is in Charlotte on Friday. The Heat have some positives they can take away from this game and, if they can get rid of the negatives, they’ll have a chance to force a Game 7 back in Miami.