Best Performance: January 23, 2017 vs. Golden State: 33 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, game winner.
There is no doubt that Waiters’s best performance of the season came in game 45 against his former teammate, Kevin Durant and the top-seeded Warriors.
In what would turn into one of the more exciting finishes of the season, Waiters eventually got the best of Durant, scoring 11 points in the final period to help preserve both Miami’s lead and a much-needed victory.
Just like they’ve done for the past two years, the fast-paced Warriors would not go away. Trailing by double-digits for much of the night, Golden State found themselves in a 98-88 hole with 3:15 to play.
Three minutes later, a Durant dunk knotted everything up at 102.
There was 11.7 seconds on the clock, and Miami still had timeouts remaining.
Spoelstra didn’t call one.
Staring the waning clock dead in the face, Waiters calmly carried the ball down court and waved everybody off, signaling iso.
With Klay Thompson draped all over him, he crossed to his right, then took it back to his left and raised up over the outstretched arms of one of the NBA’s premier perimeter defenders.
Bottom.
There was still 0.6 seconds left on the clock, too little time for the Warriors to do anything.
Miami went on to win their fourth-consecutive game, in the midst of an historic 13-game win streak.