The Miami Heat has flashed encouraging signs during stretches of games, but that hasn’t been enough.
The Heat led the New York Knicks by 13 points with 8:20 left in the third quarter, but went on to lose that Oct. 30 home game against the Knicks 116-107.
The Heat pulled ahead of the Sacramento Kings by 15 points with 11:23 remaining in the third quarter, but ultimately lost to the Kings 111-110 on Monday at Kaseya Center.
And on Wednesday, the Heat opened its six-game trip by falling to the Phoenix Suns 115-112 at Footprint Center despite leading by 15 points with 3:13 left in the third quarter.
Those second-half collapses have the Heat at 3-4 through the first seven games of the season despite entering Thursday with the NBA’s sixth-best first-half net rating. The Heat has outscored opponents by a dominant margin of 13.1 points per 100 possessions in first halves this season, but that success has been negated by its third-quarter issues with teams outscoring the Heat by 30.8 points per 100 possessions in that period.
“We’re in these games,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said, as the trip continues Friday against the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena (9 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network — Sun) . “We just got to figure out a way to close these games. We got to figure out a way to hold our leads. But we’re doing a lot of good things and we just have these lapses. They go against us at the wrong time and cost us a loss.”
Like Domantas Sabonis’ game-winner with 0.7 seconds left to lift the Kings to a one-point win against the Heat on Monday.
Like the Heat failing to get a shot up on the final possession of Wednesday’s three-point loss to the Suns. Instead of getting up a three to try to tie the score, Butler found himself rushing a pass to Tyler Herro as the final buzzer sounded.
The Heat is 1-3 in clutch games (one that has a margin of five points or fewer inside the final five minutes of the fourth quarter) this season. Winning close games has been an important part of the Heat’s regular-season formula in recent years, posting a 54-42 record in clutch games during the past two seasons.
“We don’t really do the moral victories, we want to get the real one,” Heat forward Haywood Highsmith said. “But I think we can just look at the stretches in the game when we played consistently good and then we had the lead and playing good basketball on both ends of the floor. Just got to try to make that more consistent and keep building off of that.”
BAM’S OFF NIGHT
Heat center Bam Adebayo’s shaky shooting start to the season continued on Wednesday against the Suns, finishing the loss with 12 points on 5-of-21 shooting from the field, 0-of-1 shooting on threes and 2-of-2 shooting from the foul line.
It marked the first time in Adebayo’s NBA career that he has made five or fewer shots when putting up 20 or more field-goal attempts in a game. A big reason for this inefficient night for Adebayo was the fact that he went just 5 of 19 (26.3 percent) from inside the paint against the Suns.
“We know who he is. It was an anomaly,” Spoelstra said when asked about Adebayo’s rough shooting display in Phoenix. “He had three or four sometimes in one possession, all makeable shots. That’s just sometimes the breaks of the game.”
For the season, Adebayo’s shooting efficiency is also down because of his struggles around the basket. He’s shooting 46.5 percent on paint shots this season compared to 57.3 percent on paint shots last season.
That has Adebayo shooting just 39.8 percent from the field through the first seven games this season after shooting better than 50 percent from the field in each of the first seven seasons of his NBA career.
“His shots were great,” Spoelstra continued when discussing Adebayo’s cold shooting night against the Suns. “Those were all in the wheelhouse, inside the dots. He had a lot of point-blank shots. It’s going to happen.”
Spoelstra then made sure to point out everything else Adebayo did in Phoenix, as he finished Wednesday’s loss with 12 rebounds, six assists, five steals and one block.
“He still had an incredible impact,” Spoelstra said. “He had five steals, 12 on the glass. That’s what it’s about ultimately, it’s competing, regardless of whether you’re making shots or not. He had that mental toughness to be able to do that.”
INJURY REPORT
The Heat ruled out Kevin Love (return to competition reconditioning), Josh Christopher (G League) and Keshad Johnson (G League) for Friday’s game against the Nuggets.
Love missed the first five games of the season because of personal reasons before rejoining the team earlier this week. But Love will sit out his third straight game on Friday as he works his way back into game shape.
Heat second-year forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. could make his return against the Nuggets after missing the last two games with a stomach illness. Jaquez is listed as questionable for Friday’s contest because of return to competition reconditioning.
Herro is also on the Heat’s injury report, but he’s expected to available to play against the Nuggets despite a lower back contusion.
The Nuggets remain without Vlatko Cancar (right ankle sprain), Aaron Gordon (right calf strain), PJ Hall (G League) and DaRon Holmes II (right Achilles tendion repair) against the Heat.
But Denver upgraded guard Jamal Murray to questionable after he missed the last three games while in concussion protocol.
