CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ If this was the NCAA Tournament, these games the past two weeks against the Detroit Pistons and Charlotte Hornets would have been something close to the equivalent of play-in games.
For the second straight week, the Miami Heat won and survived, leaving a devastated opponent in their wake, this time with a 112-99 victory Wednesday over the Hornets at the Spectrum Center.
On a night the power rotation was shortened, the Heat turned to the long ball, shooting 21 of 40 on 3-pointers in a victory that pushed them back into the No. 8 playoff seed in the Eastern Conference, by virtue of having won the season series against the Indiana Pacers, who also stand 38-40. The victory also left the Heat tied with the No. 7 Chicago Bulls, who hold a tiebreaker edge over the Heat.
The Heat's previous high for 3-pointers in a game had been 18.
Guard Goran Dragic led the Heat with 33 points, one off his season high, with James Johnson stepping in for sidelined starting power forward Luke Babbitt to tie his season high with 26. Guard Josh Richardson added 19 points.
Dealing with early foul trouble and a Hornets defense designed to pack the paint, Heat center Hassan Whiteside turned his focus to the boards, closing with 20 rebounds along with 13 points. Whiteside's 54th double-double broke his tie with Rony Seikaly for most in a season by a Heat player.
Guard Nicolas Batum led the Hornets with 24 points, with backcourt partner Kemba Walker adding 18.
With Babbitt sidelined with a strained right hip flexor sustained in Sunday's loss to the Denver Nuggets it had Johnson making his first start, after playing off the bench in his previous 71 appearances this season.
"It's in one of those tricky areas," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Babbitt's injury.
Babbitt missed seven games with a similar injury in December, but had been in the lineup every game as a starter since missing a Jan. 8 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers due to a cold.
The Heat already were playing in the absence of shooting guard Dion Waiters, who Wednesday's missed his ninth consecutive game with a severely sprained left ankle.
Unlike Waiters, Babbitt is traveling with the Heat.
Spoelstra said adjusting on the fly has become a trademark of a team ravaged by the preseason loss of Chris Bosh following a failed physical and then the extended injury absences of Justise Winslow and Josh McRoberts.
"We've had enough scenarios where different guys have had to step up, different lineups," he said.
Spoelstra said there certainly is no place for woe-is-we amid the playoff race.
"Look, with the moving parts, things do change," he said. "You don't feel sorry for yourself. You just work on getting better at it."
A turning point in the game came when Whiteside drew video inspection from the officiating staff with 9:14 left in the third period after flailing at Hornets defender Michael Kidd-Gilchrist following an offensive rebound. Whiteside was assessed a technical foul on the play, with Hornets center Cody Zeller assessed a personal foul.
Had Whiteside been assessed a flagrant foul, it would have been his fourth personal foul.
Whiteside then scored his first basket of the game, with 8:53 left in the third period, sparking a Heat surge that would put them up 17 in that third quarter.
The Heat then went into the fourth up 86-73, with Dragic up to 29 points to that stage.
Johnson converted a 3-pointer with 1.5 seconds left in the second period only to have it matched at the intermission buzzer by the Hornets' Marvin Williams, reducing the Heat's halftime lead to 52-51.
Dragic led the Heat with 19 first-half points, with the Heat 11 of 21 on 3-pointers over the opening two periods.
The Heat closed the first half with Whiteside on the bench with three fouls, having attempted only one first-half shot, scoreless in his 14 first-half minutes.
The Heat opened 6 of 7 on 3-pointers to push to an early eight-point lead before going into the second quarter up 27-23, the type of start they needed after a pair of flat starts in the preceding back-to-back home losses to the New York Knicks and Nuggets.
The Heat's three-game trip continues Friday against the Toronto Raptors before concluding Saturday against the Washington Wizards. The Heat then close out their 2016-17 regular-season schedule with home games next week against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Wizards.
