Good, bad & ugly from the Heat’s disappointing loss to the Knicks

In what was the Miami Heat’s second loss of the season that dropped them to an even 2-2 record, they put together another disappointing performance against a rival team. The New York Knicks came into the Kaseya Center and thumped the Heat on their home floor, 116-107. 

Miami has struggled against playoff contenders but handled its business against bad teams thus far in the 2024-25 season. It is an unfortunate trend that has carried over from a year ago, but there are more standout observations from the outing. 

The good: Tyler Herro’s offensive efficiency 

The leading scorer for the Heat this season has been Tyler Herro. He put up a team-high 34 points and 7 assists on 12 of 20 shooting (60%) to go along with an impressive 8 of 13 from 3-point range against the Knicks. Herro has always been a pure scorer, but it is a welcome sign to see him put up these numbers on an efficient shooting clip. 

He almost single handedly kept Miami in the game with his elite shot making. The long range shooting is what took up most of his shot chart, but he also was getting to the rim. With the type of scoring night Herro put together for himself, he brought a playmaking impact and created good looks for his teammates.

His gifted offensive talent was on full display and proved to be a huge positive in the midst of a bad team-wide performance.

The bad: Another rough second half 

Miami has a history of coming out of halftime and putting together their infamous “turd quarter.” They had a six-point lead going into the third and extended that lead to 13 following the break, just for the Knicks to erase the deficit and respond with a double-digit lead of their own.

The Heat lost the quarter 35-22, continuing the story of their poor second-half performances. They look like a different team even after putting together great starts against tough teams. These problems come from both ends of the floor, as the offensive goes stagnant with no spacing and discouraging activity level on defense.

The ugly: Star duo uninvolved once again  

There are plenty of discouraging outings from the Heat players in these losses, but none more than Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. For the squad’s top two guys to struggle against good teams is a tough pill to swallow. Marquee matchups are when fans expect to see the best out of their stars, not for them to disappear.

The bigger issue in this regard comes from Adebayo. The All-Star big man has yet to put together a standout performance in the first four games this year, as he dropped just 11 points and three rebounds on 4 of 7 shooting. He has looked completely out of sorts and even uncomfortable with the ball in his hands. 

Coach Erik Spoelstra said he needs to put more of an emphasis on getting Adebayo the ball going forward.

Even outside of the box score scoring, he brought little to no two-way impact defensively either. Karl-Anthony Towns was getting everything he wanted against Adebayo, exploding for a game-high 44 points and 13 rebounds. It may still be too small of a sample size to make any serious early judgment on the Heat's big man, but at what point will he and the Heat do something to get out of this rut?