The thought last Friday was that it couldn’t get any worse for the Miami Heat after their loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who at the time had the worst record in the NBA.
It got worse the very next Friday, with the Heat falling, 118-103, Friday night at State Farm Arena to an Atlanta Hawks team lacking injured Trae Young and Clint Capela.
Defenseless on a night they allowed the Hawks to shoot 53.8% from the field, and with precious little in reserve, the Heat not only failed to gain ground in the Eastern Conference playoff race, but lost the season-series 2-1.
With 12 games remaining, the Heat remained in the No. 7 seed in the East, which at season’s end would relegate them to the play-in tournament for one of the final two playoff berths in the conference.
After being humbled by Timberwolves, the Heat responded with a three-game winning streak, even while dealing with a short-handed roster.
And then came Friday night, when the Heat got 21 points from Kendrick Nunn, 10 rebounds from Trevor Ariza but not nearly enough from their leading men.
For the Hawks, there was balance and aggression throughout the available roster, as Atlanta kept the pace high and the Heat’s hopes in check.
———
Five Degrees of Heat from Friday’s game:
1. Closing time: After taking a seven-point lead early in the third period, the Heat went into the fourth down 95-89. It quickly went south from there, with Atlanta pushing its lead into double figures within the first 2:15 of the fourth quarter and later to 15 by the midpoint of the period.
The Heat did not get closer than nine the rest of the way.
2. Punchless: Even with the Hawks shorthanded, their bench still outplayed the Heat’s bench, boosted by solid performances from Brandon Goodwin, Danilo Gallinari and Lou Williams.
The Heat, by contrast, got a solid performance from Tyler Herro (12 points_, but little else, with Goran Dragic (three points) and Andre Iguodala (zero points, 0-for-4 shooting) struggling.
3. Nunn sense: With Victor Oladipo away from the team due to ongoing knee soreness, Nunn continued to maximize his opportunity.
This time he was up to 13 points by the intermission, including 3 of 5 on 3-pointers, and kept going from there, with 21 going into the fourth.
Where Nunn lacks in the comparison with Oladipo is on the other end, where the Hawks attacked him as a defender, the Heat doing little to stop Atlanta in transition.
4. Early offense: How offensive was the first half that ended with the Hawks up 62-61?
Dragic (0 for 1) and Iguodala (0 for 1) were the only Heat players who did not shoot at least 50% from the field in the first half.
The Heat had a .615 field-goal percentage at halftime, the Hawks .590. The Heat were 9 of 19 on 3-pointers in the first half, the Hawks 7 of 14.
The Hawks kept going from there, with a 31-point third quarter.
5. Shorthanded: All the Hawks were lacking without Young and Capela were their two best players.
“You don’t have that sitting on your bench, what those two guys bring to your lineup, your starting point and your starting center, and the way they played this season,” Hawks coach Nate McMillan said. “But when you have injuries, such as we have had, it’s the next man up.”
That meant a start for former Heat forward Solomon Hill.
