It was play-in time for the Miami Heat tonight.
Walking into Charlotte against a top ranking offense, as they’ve been lighting it up on that end of the floor since the new calendar year.
The Heat were fully healthy walking into this game, before Bam Adebayo went down in the second quarter after LaMelo Ball grabbed his leg, leading to a hard fall on that tailbone.
These two teams went back and forth for the rest of this game making runs of their own, including Davion Mitchell and Andrew Wiggins rising to the occasion into the Hornets late rally into Tyler Herro overtime madness into the eventual LaMelo Ball game winner.
Let’s go through some takeaways:
1. Heat sophomores stepping up for Miami.
Kel’el Ware started this game for the Heat, and he was bringing the energy on both ends of the floor next to Adebayo. Working the offensive glass, but more importantly, lighting it up from three as the Hornets continued to help off him. He’s been shooting the ball at such a high level to close the season. But he wasn’t the only second year player coming through, as Pelle Larsson’s energy led to a second quarter swing. He got Brandon Miller three fouls with 32 minutes left in the game, and brought an edge after Adebayo went down. A promising sight to see these two young guys playing well with some national attention on them.
2. A game of runs and swinging momentum
In this Adebayo-less stretch, the Heat were actually building something positive on both ends. A strong finish to the first half gave them a 2 point lead at that point, and an early third quarter surge followed. Threes were dropping and Heat were playoff off Ware’s rim protection into the open floor. But then that shift happened. This Heat season has often been altered through short stretches, and that 10-0 Hornets run late in the third was that tonight. Coby White, who has been waiting for play-in revenge against Miami, found his rhythm from deep in that stretch, and he ultimately closed it for Charlotte. Miami had a decent sized lead late as the Hornets chipped away, and after leading by 3 with 12 seconds left, a wild fading corner triple from White sent it to overtime. Hornets took over from there.
3. Lottery pick it is.
The Heat had chances tonight. Plenty of chances. That’s even with the Adebayo injury that left him out the rest of the game. This team was seconds away from moving onto the second play-in game toward the end of regulation, but wasn’t able to close it out, which perfectly summarizes this Heat season. Miami now heads into an early off-season, which includes a bid into the lottery, as many Heat fans had hoped for. Ideally they can get lucky and move up in the draft, as it seems to be the one outlet to improving this roster with the constant strikeouts on trade targets. Off-season time it is.
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