MIAMI — The Phoenix Suns shrunk the Miami Heat down to size on Wednesday night in a meeting of conference leaders.
Pummeling the Heat on the glass, the Suns played as the far superior of the short-handed teams, dumping the Heat, 111-90, at FTX Arena.
With the Heat lacking Jimmy Butler and the Suns without Chris Paul, Phoenix had more than enough, on the night they outrebounded the Heat 55-38.
With the exception of Duncan Robinson raining 3-pointers, the Heat struggled to get into offense, even with point guard Kyle Lowry closing with 10 assists.
The Suns, boosted by 14 offensive rebounds and a 14-4 scoring advantage on second-chance points, got chance after chance with their superior aggression, getting 23 points, nine assists and eight rebounds from guard Devin Booker, who returned from COVID-19 protocols, 19 points and 10 rebounds from center Deandre Ayton and 21 points from forward Mikal Bridges.
For the Heat there were 22 points from Robinson, who closed 6 of 11 on 3-pointers, and 17 apiece from Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo. No Heat player had more rebounds than the six apiece of Adebayo and P.J. Tucker.
Five Degrees of Heat from Wednesday’s game:
— 1. No Butler: The previous time the teams met, the Heat won, 123-100, Jan. 8 in Phoenix despite being without Butler, Adebayo and Dewayne Dedmon.
This time Butler was out due to sinus congestion, with the Heat falling to 13-8 in his absences.
Rather than disrupt the second unit as Victor Oladipo acclimates, Heat coach Spoelstra returned Gabe Vincent to the starting lineup a game after Vincent was limited to mop-up duty in Monday night’s victory over the Houston Rockets.
— 2. Brief night: Reserve forward Caleb Martin then was lost for the night midway through the second quarter with a knee injury, landing awkwardly after a pass.
His night was limited to 9:40, closing 1 of 5 from the field, with three rebounds, two points, two blocked shots and a steal.
Martin again was playing as eighth man, entering ahead of Oladipo and over Max Strus, who did not enter for the first time until late in the third period.
— 3. Oladipo 2.0: Oladipo again was solid but unspectacular in his limited, measured minutes in his second game back from May quadriceps surgery.
He was particularly adept with his playmaking, which likely again will have Vincent out of the rotation once Butler returns.
He closed with four points on 2-of-4 shooting, three assists and two rebounds in 16:39.
Spoelstra made it clear pregame that circumstances, injuries elsewhere or otherwise, would not impact the goal of keeping Oladipo initially to about 15 minutes per game.
“Nope. Same,” Spoelstra said. “I’m going to give that same answer for a while.”
— 4. Passing fancy: Lowry had five assists in the opening 4:27, including a fullcourt touchdown pass to Vincent that led to the Suns timeout.
That came when the Heat led by 11 points, their lone sustained success of the night. A 19-point third period would follow, as would a 16-point fourth quarter.
With his ninth assist, Lowry moved past Norm Nixon for 30th on the NBA all-time list.
Lowry, though was limited to five points, taking only three shots on a night his offense could have helped.
— 5. Early range: Robinson opened 4 of 4 on 3-pointers, the sixth time in the last seven games he has converted multiple 3-pointers.
But for as good a start as it was for Robinson, it went south in a hurry, with the Heat closing the opening period 1 of 10 from the field, with just two points over the final 6:05 of the first quarter, with three turnovers.
Robinson was then 1 of 4 on his next four 3-point attempts.
