Miami Heat: 3 takeaways from 135-122 overtime victory over the Atlanta Hawks
By Duncan Smith
On Star Wars Night at American Airlines Arena, the Miami Heat rode huge performances all over their starting lineup to an overtime victory against the Atlanta Hawks.
The Miami Heat are a hard team to kill, especially at home. In a game where they let a 15 point first quarter lead over the Atlanta Hawks get away, more or less stopped defending for the greater part of the second half and trailed by six points with 59 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Heat found a way to defend their home court one more time to bring their record to 11-0 at American Airlines Arena so far this season with a 135-122 victory.
In fact, Trae Young called game with less than a minute left with that lead, only to have his team cough up that edge late. From that point on, the Heat scored 21 straight points and officially put the game into garbage time with 84 seconds left in overtime when Young was pulled from the game with a 15 point deficit.
In spite of a second half defensive lull, the Heat managed to overcome some self-induced challenges and have further strengthened their surprising claim as one of the strongest teams in the Eastern Conference this season.
Without further ado, we’ll get to this game’s three key takeaways.