The 26-33 Miami Heat lost to a 12-50 Phoenix Suns team that was on their way to losing 18 straight games, alas, it was the Heat’s game to lose at home.
No, it wasn’t just the Miami Heat’s Josh Richardson foul with 17.3 seconds remaining in the game that sent Devin Booker to the line for his game-winning free throws, it wasn’t just Erik Spoelstra’s decision to play funk lineups, it wasn’t the horrible backcourt defense that was without Justise Winslow, it wasn’t one single event that caused the Heat to lose to the worst team in the NBA. However, I did feel a sense of bad juju from seeing Tyler Johnson in his no. 16 jersey for the Suns, as it just seemed wrong (scored 18 points, second to Booker’s 20).
But still, most fans have blamed J-Rich for his hiccups at the end of this one, even if Head Coach Erik Spoelstra profusely disagrees, per Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel:
"“I trust our defenders and I trust J-Rich and his decision making in those kinds of moments,” he said. “I think he thought he had a play like in Golden State. I think he thought he had the pick and then the ball was delivered a little bit differently and Booker stopped.“It’s just one of those bang-bang plays. It’s so much easier from any one of our vantage points to say, ‘What are you doing?’ But we’ve seen him make those deflections for a big-time, game-winning steal. At the end of the day, I think he just got his hand in there and Booker just fell. But I get it. It’s a crash-bang play and those are not easy plays to officiate.”"
If you watched closely, you would have seen that was just an unfortunate decision for the officials to make, mostly because of the veteran arm lock by Devin Booker to seal the foul to get his free throws. While in a perfect world that wouldn’t have been called, we could’ve easily seen that happen the other way around with J-Rich locking Booker’s arm and most of Heat Nation would’ve been ecstatic about his veteran decision there.
Albeit, the Heat scored 121 points, but there so-called “top-ten” defense gave up 124 points to a terrible offense, even if the Suns have the no. 1 pick Deandre Ayton and scoring phenom Devin Booker.
In saying all this, the main excuse the Heat should have in this one is injuries, they were without Justise Winslow, James Johnson, Derrick Jones Jr., and Rodney McGruder. And while that all seems applicable to this loss because of the lack of forwards and big men the Heat had, it was in fact their wings/big men that played that kept them in the game, with Hassan Whiteside, Kelly Olynyk and Bam Adebayo being the Heat’s 3 leading scorers for the first time ever.
The Heat are now 1.5 games back from the 8th seed and are slowly, but surely, falling out of the playoffs from losing 8 of their last 10 games. And to top it all off, the Heat play at home against the Golden State Warriors tomorrow, hell, if anything I can see this insanely inconsistent team pull off a win in this one.