The Miami Heat outlast the Toronto Raptors in low scoring affair
The Miami Heat faced the banged-up Raptors on Thursday night, but they couldn’t take them lightly. After losing to Washington, how would they perform?
The Miami Heat were back at it on Thursday after Monday’s deflating loss. They needed to get back on the court after allowing one of the worst teams in the league to defeat them and frankly, beat them badly.
The Miami Heat obviously took that defeat personally, as they came out with a stopper’s mentality against the Toronto Raptors. According to the post-game show on NBATV, the Miami Heat held the Toronto Raptors to the second-fewest points scored by any team this season in the NBA, allowing them to score only 76 points to the Heat’s 84.
Some will point to the fact that the Toronto Raptors are banged up right now and they might have a point. I would then point to the fact that they have scored 117, 97, 113, and 102 points in their last four respective games. There isn’t an issue with the Toronto Raptors’ scoring, the Miami Heat were just locked in defensively on Thursday.
Speaking of defense, Coach Spo went with a really heavy dosage of the 2-3 zone in this game and it was very effective. The Toronto Raptors had an awful shooting night from both the field and the three-point line, to be honest. They shot 31.5 percent from the field on 28-89 shooting, while they only shot 14.3 percent from deep, going 6/42 from the long-distance stripe.
Jimmy Butler struggled shooting the ball on Thursday for the Heat, but he contributed across the board in every other category, with his hustle, and of course on the defensive end. Can we imagine how good the Heat can be when Jimmy gets going consistently?
The Miami Heat are right back at it on Friday against their in-state rivals, the Orlando Magic. The Magic are a hard-nosed defensive team, but they are banged up as well coming into this game. They will definitely be without Jonathan Isaac and likely even Aaron Gordon.
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The Miami Heat will want to quickly put this Toronto game behind them and get focused on the Magic, although Thursday represents another very good Heat win. We will try to get another tough defensive performance out of the Heat on Friday, but either way, we can’t wait to see it.