Even after the Chicago Bulls fell down 22-1, they were able to race back and defeat the Miami Heat 102-97 inside United Center Saturday evening, snapping Miami’s seven-game win streak.
The Heat’s 21-point lead encompassed the first 7:11 of the contest; Miami knocked down nine of their first 12 baskets–with 20 of their 22 points coming from Jimmy Butler, Duncan Robinson and Bam Adebayo. Chicago, on the other hand, missed their first 10 shots but shot 50.7 percent the rest of the way relative to the Heat’s 36.7 percent.
The Heat’s fourth-quarter woes continued Saturday evening, getting outscored 34-21 after leading by eight heading into the period. Miami now sports a minus-18.4 NET Rating in the final period, only trailing the Phoenix Suns (-25.3) for the worst in the Association.
DeMar DeRozan tallied a team-high 23 points for Chicago–12 coming in the final period. He shot 6-of-12 from the floor, including 2-of-4 from 3-point range and 9-of-13 from the free-throw line.
Nikola Vucevic added 15 points with eight rebounds on 7-of-14 shooting. Coby White had 14 points on 4-of-10 shooting from distance, in addition to three boards, five assists and a steal. Alex Caruso posted 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting, canning a pair of triples himself.
Jimmy Butler led the Heat with 25 points on 8-of-16 shooting. Bam Adebayo posted a 24-point, 10-rebound, five-assist performance on a very efficient 8-of-12 shooting, but had only one shot attempt in the final 19:09 of game time, a big reason why Miami’s offense sputtered late.
Duncan Robinson rounded off Miami’s double-figure scorers with 17 points and seven dimes on 4-of-5 shooting from 3-point range. Miami failed to get quality bench production out of Jaime Jaquez Jr.–who battled foul trouble throughout Saturday’s game–Josh Richardson, Kevin Love and Caleb Martin, who’s still easing his way into the season.
It was a complete flip of the script from what we saw over the Heat’s seven-game win streak. The Bulls were also a plus-10 on the glass (44-34), a plus-12 from 3-point range (16-12), a plus-10 in the paint (32-22), a plus-five on second-chance points (16-11) with one more assist and three fewer turnovers,
Saturday night marked the first time the two teams played since the Bulls came minutes away from ending the Heat’s season in the play-in tournament in April. The Bulls have won four straight regular-season matchups against the Heat.
It also marked the first of two straight games against one another, so the Heat, who are 4-4 on the road this season, will have an opportunity to split the road-road series Monday inside United Center.
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Can’t win them all. We have a do over tonight. Great opportunity to erase the sting of the loss.
No one expected a 7 game win streak from this team so they have earned collateral.
As long as we don’t go on a losing streak it’s all good.
To much hero ball by Jimmy down the stretch. He wanted to win the game by himself.
I think we need more size and shooting in the rotation.
We’re to small with to many players that opposing defenses have no respect for, especially from 3.
Good defensive teams with size that can put points on the board are going to rip us a new one.
The bulls aren’t even a good rebounding team yet they still punked us on the glass.
I would still like to see Jovic get some playing time.
Despite what people say I think he’s ready to contribute.
He brings the perfect blend of size, rebounding, playmaking, scoring and shooting that we don’t have enough of on this team.
He’s a young talented 3 level scorer like Tyler was back in his rookie season.
In fact Jovic, Tyler and Jimmy (somewhat) are our only 3 level scorers.
Why is one of the most versatile offensive players on the team not playing? Because he’s young and should wait his turn?
Talent and ability should trump that type of thinking.
I seem to recall Denver whupping our azz in the finals with a rookie playing heavy mins.
I also seem to recall us going to the finals with Tyler in his rookie season.
Playing Jovic now and letting him work through the kinks could pay off big time later on in the season and definitely will next season.
I would love to see a starting lineup of Tyler, Caleb, Jimmy, Jovic and Bam.
With a bench unit of Lowry, Duncan, Highsmith, Jacquez and KLove.
I think that lineup brings us the best mixture of offensive and defensive versatility. Including size, speed, experience and youth.
I just think a young talented player Like Jovic should be given every opportunity to succeed before he’s even considered in a trade.
Just my 2 cents.
Actually 4 cents.
This post is to fking long to be just considered 2 cents.
I was hoping the same for jovic, but I think spo just doesn’t trust his defense enough yet I guess.
Exactly. Intriguing skill set, but apparently has been lost on defense. Hopefully we’ll get to see him play soon.
Looks like I picked the wrong game to miss. I didn’t see it, but based on what I’ve seen all season, I’m guessing Spo went with 12 minutes of J-Rich in the 4th quarter and the Heat blew the lead. The plus/minus in the box score supports my theory. Prove me wrong.
Nah. JRich is not my favourite player, but this one is not on him. It was the team loss. Butler was bad at the end, and Bam disappeared at the end, but he was really good before, but you cant blame then for this one. All the rest were worse then usually. That was the reason we lost.
If players with open looks don’t score, a pg will not change that.
If players don’t get stops on defense, a pg will not change that.
If players commit silly fouls, a pg will not change that.
A pg may give you 20 to 30 pts a game, but trust me Butler, Bam, Duncan, Herro will not all give you 20 pts plus at every game too. 1 or 2 of the starters AGP will drop. Even if they all do, they will need to rest and have the bench unit come in. A low scoring bench unit, with high TOs and poor defense won’t win you games either.
A win has to be a collective effort from everyone, The loss last night was not for want of a PG but the bench let us down.
Don’t just lay it all on the bench. All four of them scored.
Highsmith didn’t score at all. Although his defense is great, he scored a total of 18 points in 106 minutes during the past 4 games. He made 2-14 3-point shots and averaged 3 rebounds and .75 assists during that period. He’s averaging 7.2 ppg for the season.
Lowry had 11 points and 9 assists the past 3 games (he didn’t play against San Antonio) and is averaging 6.9 ppg during the season.
You cannot win a championship with those kinds of starters.
With Herro returning and dropping 20 ppg+ and the addition of a good (not great) PG who averages 12-15 ppg, or more plus 5-6 apg and a two-way PF who can chip in another 10-12 ppg and 6-8 rpg, the Heat could compete with the top tier teams. Without those upgrades, Miami will be lucky to stay out of the play-in tournament.
The Eastern Conference is going to be a dogfight this year! https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/standings?ocid=hpmsn
It’s time for Riley to do his magic!
GO HEAT!!!
A game like this points out how important Herro is to this team. He was one of the best 4th quarter players in the league last season. IMO, if he was available, the team might’ve had a better chance of winning.
Until we show we can beat a top tier team, there are questions as to the team we currently have and whether it requires augmentation. I believe that even though we would prefer to not need to make a trade, it will at some point become apparent we do, if we want to go for a title. The obvious place to look is at pg, but if a Lavine or especially a Derozan type (or the player himself), became available, and we upgraded there, it would help too. A team’s strength is collective and any upgrade to any position except center, where Bam is dominant, would lift all boats. But, it has to be a very good player and would require at least some picks and possibly a player, which for most of our players, we can afford to give up to acquire the clear upgrade.
As I, and others, have alluded to, the Heat are a deep team. Subtracting O Robinson, who isn’t getting playing time, plus Jovic who is still raw, they are still 12 deep. A lot of those 12 are good, not great, players, but ones that could be complimentary players on another team. 2 or 3 are expendable and/or redundant. So the Heat could package 2-3 players plus a pick to bring in someone that can add to the team’s success.
If players with open looks don’t score, a pg will not change that.
If players don’t get stops on defense, a pg will not change that.
If players commit silly fouls, a pg will not change that.
A pg may give you 20 to 30 pts a game, but trust me Butler, Bam, Duncan, Herro will not all give you 20 pts plus at every game too. 1 or 2 of the starters AGP will drop. Even if they all do, they will need to rest and have the bench unit come in. A low scoring bench unit, with high TOs and poor defense won’t win you games either.
A win has to be a collective effort from everyone, The loss last night was not for want of a PG but the bench let us down.
That top tier team vs Heat will be there soon enough. NY (a little above ave lol), Milw, Indy (2x) they’ll go 4-0 there 😁
The little dent in a winning run happens. Just hope that dent doesn’t get big.
Highsmith 0 points on 0-4 shooting and Lowry 8 points on 3-10 shooting. 8 points on 3-14 shots from two starters just won’t cut it. Both are good rotation players. Neither is starting caliber. It will be interesting to what Riley does to improve the roster from December 15 – trade deadline.
GO HEAT!!!
Availability and consistency are the most important skills of an NBA player. Notice the two players who were consistent with their overall contributions to the team were the two all-stars, Butler and Adebayo. Availability and consistency separate the greats from the rest.
not ability?
AvailABILITY. There, fixed it!
Is the best ability as they say.
You can have all the ability in the world, but if you’re not available what good is it? Player inconsistency is the number one culprit of teams having roller-coaster seasons.
I expected the Heat to have trouble with the Bulls.
The Heat’s greatest strength as a team is being able to protect the ball while causing opponents to turn the ball over at a high rate.
The problem for the Heat is that the bulls are even better than they are at doing this, in fact the Bulls are the best in the nba at it.
The bulls have the nba’s top turnover differential.
They commit the fewest turnovers while causing the 2nd most among opponents.
They negate the Heat’s greatest strength they have as a team over their opponents.
And the Heat don’t have any other real advantages they can turn to as a team when they face the bulls because they’re below average to terrible in other important statistical categories like shooting threes (18th in the nba), defending threes (26th) and rebounding (27th).
It’s the reason why they’ve had so much trouble with the Bulls the past two seasons.
Great post, Thanks!
This season from my observation, like I said before “As the bench goes, so does the Heat”. Last night’s loss was not an exception. The Bulls’ bench invigorated the team, The Heat’s bench drowned the team. What I am pleased about, is that none of the comments so far have used this as an excuse to advance the call for a PG. A PG can not replace a whole bench unit nor will a PG make the unit shoot better or defend better. As sad as the loss was, it is another opportunity for improvement and the march to a finished product.
Go Heat, Go!
I m a bit mad.
Chicago has the same modus operandi for years. The dig a hole, and spend the rest of the game climb out of it. They are rarely successful. Heat could do better at the end, even with most of the team off.
Another blown lead and another game to right against the same team. Let’s start another win streak.
Yeah…an 11 game win streak maybe? That twelfth game vs wolves so its ok to lose vs Ant again hehe
Yes I’m all for it lol
This is the first game that I have been unhappy with in weeks.
No excuse to drop the lead in a game that they had control of for 3 qtrs.
Oh well, payback comes Monday night.
Let’s Go Heat!
this loss sucks but it happens to the best of em. grind again and next game dont let them get back.