Entering the fourth quarter with a 10 point lead, the Miami Heat were in position to earn a signature win against the league's best team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Instead of closing the deal, the Heat managed to score only eight points (yes that is correct) in the final quarter and fell to the Thunder 115-101 Wednesday night at Paycom Center.
Another fourth quarter collapse that does not make sense
With the fourth quarter underway, it was clear that the Thunder planned on playing MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the entire fourth quarter after checking out of the third quarter with under five minutes to go. On Miami's end, Erik Spoelstra put out a lineup that did not feature Davion Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, or Andrew Wiggins to start the fourth quarter.
Miami's defense played a big part in building what was a 21 point lead in the first half, and to not have any one of those three players on the court is head-scratching. But beyond that, the most egregious mistake of them all was not playing Adebayo the entire fourth quarter. The Thunder had no answers for Adebayo who put together one of his best performances of the season. Instead of matching his minutes with Gilgeous-Alexander, Adebayo entered the game with the Heat down three with momentum lost and the raucous Thunder crowd now back in the game.
The Heat are not the Cleveland Cavaliers where they are comfortably sitting at the top of the Eastern Conference. This is a team that entered this game below .500 and needs to find a way to go on a winning streak to avoid being in the play-in tournament for a third consecutive season.
If someone like Adebayo or Tyler Herro is playing great and it's clear that the team cannot survive with one of those players off the court, then they need to play 40 minutes or more in that particular game. There should not be a single thought of looking ahead to the playoffs when there is a chance the Heat might miss the playoffs.
This is now consecutive road games where the Heat have failed to score over double digits in the fourth quarter. That sentence was honestly hard to type and it is a shocking fact that is hard to believe. Injuries or not, no team should be scoring under double digits in a quarter multiple times this season.
Miami has put together a list of games where they have folded in the most embarrassing way with prime examples being losing a 22 point lead in the fourth quarter against the Orlando Magic and losing a 17 point lead in the fourth against the Sacramento Kings. The fourth quarter collapses are a continued trend that can ultimately end up costing the Heat a playoff spot if this problem is not resolved soon.