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Before the Miami Heat take on the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night, the team has to get the bad taste out of their mouths after the collapse suffered the day prior to the Oklahoma City Thunder. As the Heat traded Jimmy Butler before the trade deadline and are working through getting their new players to adapt to their system, it has resulted in two straight losses, one to the Boston Celtics on Monday and then Wednesday to the Thunder.
To some, seeing that Miami losing to the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference isn't a huge deal, but context is important for this specific game. The Heat would dominate most of the game in an impressive outing, even up by as much as 21 points.
Miami would take a 10-point lead going into the fourth quarter where the collapse started as Oklahoma City went on a 24-0 run gave them their first lead of the entire game and they never looked back. The Heat would only score eight points in the entire final frame to conclude what was the most disappointing game of the season.
This marks now Miami's 13th game this season where they have lost a double-digit lead which is the second most in the entire league behind the Utah Jazz. Looking at the number of points scored in the fourth period, there have been only four times in the NBA where a team has scored in single-digits in the quarter with the Heat dreadfully taking three spots.
“It got really ugly offensively for us and then we stopped doing the things defensively,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said according to The Miami Herald. “I still don’t know if that would have guaranteed it. But we fell apart defensively, as well.”
Heat's Bam Adebayo, Erik Spoelstra with different viewpoints on collapse
There could be a lot of fingers pointed in different directions in terms of who to blame for the effort whether it be the coaching staff, players, or even the Heat's newcomers still getting into rhythm. However, Spoelstra decided to take a positive approach while acknowledging the poor play in the fourth.
“Right now, I’m going with what I saw in the first three quarters,” Spoelstra said. “We’ve made some progress in the last 24 hours from our session last night and in the shootaround. And then we weren’t able to sustain. I see a lot of positives that we can build on. It’s not about moral victories. But right now, we’re trying to build this thing fast.”
However, the Heat's captain Bam Adebayo wouldn't go in the same direction as his head coach.
“No, I don’t want to go there,” Adebayo said.
“It’s one of those things, man, it’s a lesson,” Adebayo continued. “But how many times we got to keep learning this lesson? And it’s not just the players, it’s the coaches, as well. We got to understand that we got to all be on the same page.”
What led to the Heat's collapse in the eyes of the players
Speaking of Adebayo, people could critique Spoelstra for not playing the big man to start the fourth quarter as he had been leading the team in not just his elite defense, but had 22 points and 11 rebounds through three periods. However, Oklahoma City would have already taken the momentum drastically as they never let up off the gas/
“They got momentum,” Adebayo said. “I feel like that was the difference in the game. I feel like the whole game, they would go on a run, our offense would hold up. Obviously, they got momentum in the fourth and kind of took off from there.”
“We checked out up 10. We checked back in down three,” Adebayo continued. “From that standpoint, we got to all understand it’s a momentum shift and we got to understand how we can stop this snowball effect. So for us, it’s figuring out how to basically settle the offense and then get stops on the other end.”
Once again, when you're facing the best team in the association record-wise, the game is never in doubt, but one has to look at the constant fourth-quarter collapses and feel a reality check is in effect for the team. Coming back from a stomach illness, the Heat's All-Star in Tyler Herro spoke about the possible solutions for the issues in the late periods of the game.
“Just finding ways to play through adversity, playing through when a team ramps up their pressure like that and starts denying me the ball,” Herro said. “Just finding different ways to get into our offense so we can get the shots we want without getting taken out of what we want to do.”
Lack of productivity from Tyler Herro when Heat needed him most
Another reason for the late collapse Wednesday night could be accredited to Herro who has been the team's leading scorer but didn't put anything on the board in the fourth. The only points by them in the final frame were Adebayo and Heat newcomer Andrew Wiggins, but when the team was on the verge of a collapse, they needed a go-to scorer with Herro being the No. 1 answer.
One could imagine how Herro felt Wednesday as he and his other select teammates were dealing with the same stomach virus, so fatigue could have played into it among other factors.
“Just a little stomach bug,” Herro said. “I was dealing with a little stomach bug. I had to miss shootaround in the last game and then I flew here this morning, I just wanted to give myself an opportunity to get out here and finish off these last two games before the All-Star break.”
Jaime Jaquez Jr. also didn't log a single second as he's also coming back from an illness, but Spoelstra would cite the lack of activity.
“He was available,” Spoelstra said. “But his situation is a little bit different than Tyler. He’s been dealing with that for several days. Tyler dealt with it for 36 hours. Could Jaime have been out there? Possibly. But he hasn’t done anything really physically for several days.”
Erik Spoelstra sees the bright side in Heat's collapse
There is no doubt that there is blame to go around for the collapses, including the one against the Thunder as the rotations were off due to the lack of Adebayo by the coaching staff. But also, the players themselves shot 16.7 percent from the field, only making three field goals, two of those being from deep, despite Miami playing efficiently in the paint through the first three quarters.
Even with the most gut-wrenching loss of the season, Spoelstra sees a bright immediate future with this team and despite the measly eight points in the fourth, “there were a lot of good things.”
“It’s not fun going through this,” Spoelstra said. “But we’re learning our lessons. We’re going to continue to get better. And then ultimately, I want to see us make real strides in our resolve and grit when the game is not going the way we want it to go. Can we still function? Can we still do the things that put us in a position to have success?”
“Eight points is not great,” Spoelstra said. “Obviously, that’s not fun in the fourth quarter. But there were a lot of good things that we’re going to build on.”
Miami is 25-27 which puts them eighth in the East as they next face the Mavericks in the second game of the back-to-back on Thursday.
