The Miami Heat start the current four-game home stand inside the Kaseya Center with a frustrating loss against the New Orleans Pelicans, 111-88. A loss like this hurts the Heat as with now 13 games left in the regular season, time is running out to solidify position for the postseason as the Eastern Conference is tightly packed.
— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) March 23, 2024
While the Pelicans are far from a bad team, it is still befuddling to see how stale Miami came out to perform in the game as they were abysmal from the field and especially from three-point range shooting 36 percent and 27.7 percent respectively. Jimmy Butler led with 17 points to go along with five assists and four rebounds.
Here are three takeaways from the Heat's loss to the Pelicans Friday night:
Defending Zion Williamson and others on Pelicans
While the Pelicans were successful for most of this game, one of thew few aspects Miami did well was defend arguably their best and most explosive player in Zion Williamson. So much so, that they kept him scoreless through the first half which is the first time for Williamson in his NBA career.
They did an exceptional job in pressuring him on drive-ins to the rim and clogging up the lanes where Williamson gets most of his success. They would also force him to commit four turnovers in the first half out of New Orleans' 11 where the Heat got 16 points out of those mistakes.
Williamson finished with four points and if any fan sees that with no context, the first thought would probably be that the opposing team won with ease. Not this time as even with Williamson struggling and Brandon Ingram out with injury, it was guard CJ McCollum who was excellent with 30 points along with Jose Alvarado who scored 17 off the bench.
Three-point shooting struggles for Miami without Duncan Robinson
The absence of Duncan Robinson was felt throughout the game, especially in the first half as Miami only made two shots from deep out of 15 attempts until Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra brought in Cole Swider. Despite rarely hearing his name called, he came into the game and hit two straight threes.
Besides the bit of juice, the Heat were struggling from beyond the arch despite the Pelicans giving them multiple opportunities to capitalize. Including Friday, Robinson has missed the last two games due to a back injury that was later specified as “right facet syndrome” and a timetable on his return is unknown except for Spoelstra saying before the game that he is “day-to-day.”
While it's hard to put the full reason for the loss on one player that is arguably not a top three player on the team, shooting from deep has been a strength for Miami in the past because of Robinson. If everything else isn't working including the threat from deep, it's a recipe for disaster which this game showed as they finished making 13 of 37 attempts from deep.
Momentum towards rest of the home stand
As it was written about earlier by ClutchPoints, the home record for the Heat has been middling at best when in previous years, it was a massive strength. The current four-game home stand was a chance to rack up some victories against opponents like the Pelicans who they beat in late February, despite them winning seven of their last 10 games before Friday.
They now drop to 17-16 on their home floor which if you told a Heat fan that would happen before the season, they would think you're in Bizarro world. But, this is reality and Miami has to now face it as the regular season is coming closer and closer to being over.
While it would have been beneficial to have positive momentum going into Sunday's game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, they now have to climb more hurdles. As per the Heat way, they now enter the dire home stretch of the season on an edge-of-your-seat time where there is now no room for error as they should be playing playoff basketball a bit early.
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