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.
Monster performances
For a franchise with alumni like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O’Neal, Alonzo Mourning and Chris Bosh, it’s incredible to even find records left to break, let alone for those marks to actually fall. On this December night on South Beach, records did fall in a game with impressive performances all over the starting lineup.
Duncan Robinson went 10-of-14 from 3-point range, tying a Miami Heat record for 3-pointers in a game and finishing with 34 points. His starting backcourt mate Kendrick Nunn, a player who had to battle his way onto the roster in the first place with a strong Summer League performance, put up a career high 36 points and wore Trae Young by making him work on defense.
For the first time in Heat history, two teammates had triple-doubles in the same game. Jimmy Butler overcame a shaky shooting performance (although he hit the late 3-pointer that tied the game and sent it to overtime) to record a 20 point, 18 rebound and 10 assist triple-double, and Bam Adebayo matched the feat with 30 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.
Never before had this deed been done by Shaq and D-Wade, or Bosh and LeBron, or any other combination of Miami Heat teammates.
South Beach first quarters are undefeated
A big part of the Miami Heat’s recipe for success in the first quarter of the season has come from utilizing home court advantage to the maximum. They’re 11-0 at home now following this victory over the Hawks, and they have shown a tendency to jump all over opponents early. They build huge leads against teams who simply aren’t prepared to fight for their lives in the first couple minutes of a basketball game, and they’ve been coasting to frequent easy wins as a result.
Coming into Tuesday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks, the Heat had the NBA’s second-best first quarter net rating at home. They’re outscoring opponents by 28.7 points per 100 possessions in first quarters at American Airlines Arena, just slightly behind the +29.8 of the Milwaukee Bucks.
Even though they still struggle to avoid turnovers, they shoot the lights out in first quarters. They score 126.2 points per 100 possessions, they have an effective field goal percentage of 63 percent and a true shooting percentage of 67 percent.
Almost certainly these numbers will prove to be unsustainable eventually, but right now this is a hot team that plays to kill its opponents in the first four minutes of games. It’s a rare mentality, and it’s a fun thing to watch.
Derrick Jones Jr.’s defense made the difference
On a night with standout offensive performances left and right, the Miami Heat still wouldn’t have stolen this win without the quietly outstanding defensive performance of Derrick Jones Jr. in the fourth quarter. He had a high-flying dunk off a lob in this game, but the most important play of the game came when Jones defended DeAndre’ Bembry‘s drive to the basket with 40 seconds left.
The Heat trailed the Hawks by three points, and a basket or foul would have essentially iced it for the visitors. Jones stuck with Bembry’s slash to the rim and blocked the shot, setting up Jimmy Butler’s 3-pointer to tie the game.
https://twitter.com/MiamiHEAT/status/1204602079622422528?s=20
Jones scored nine points on nine shots in 35 minutes of action, missed all four of his 3-pointers and went 1-of-3 from the free throw line, but his defense in the clutch after the Heat struggled massively through most of the first three quarters and first half of the fourth quarter made all the difference for the home team.
This was a box score game with Butler, Adebayo, Nunn and Robinson showing out, but a non-box score performance saved the Miami Heat on their home floor.