This is not how the Miami Heat wanted to begin its six-game trip.
Not only did the Heat start the long trip without three starters in Jimmy Butler (right big toe irritation), Kyle Lowry (personal reasons) and P.J. Tucker (left knee irritation).
But the short-handed Heat (32-19) also couldn’t overcome the absence of three starters, as it fell to the Boston Celtics 122-92 on Monday night at TD Garden for its most lopsided loss of the season. Paired with Saturday’s triple-overtime loss to the Toronto Raptors, it marks the first time that Miami has dropped consecutive games since defeats on Jan. 2 and 3.
The loss also pushed the Heat down from first to second place in the Eastern Conference, with the Chicago Bulls now just percentage points ahead of Miami.
The Heat faced an uphill battle from the start, as the Celtics (27-25) opened the game on a 21-7 run and led by 15 early in the second quarter. Miami battled back as it often does to tie the score, 32-32, just a few minutes later with 6:37 left in the second quarter.
The Celtics controlled the game from there, as the Heat never led.
Boston responded to Miami’s second-quarter surge with a run of its own to enter halftime with a nine-point lead. The Celtics then outscored the Heat 40-25 in the third quarter to pull away and enter the final period ahead by 24.
The Heat shot just 39.1 percent from the field in the loss. Max Strus scored a team-high 27 points on a career-high nine made threes.
Meanwhile, the Celtics were led by 49 combined points from the duo of Jaylen Brown (29 points, four rebounds and two assists) and Jayson Tatum (20 points, 12 rebounds and five assists).
Along with missing Butler, Lowry and Tucker, the Heat was also without Markieff Morris (return to competition reconditioning), KZ Okpala (right wrist sprain), Victor Oladipo (right knee injury recovery) and Omer Yurtseven (health and safety protocols) on Monday. That left Miami with just 10 available players in Boston.
The Heat is back at it again Tuesday against the Raptors in Toronto (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun). It will not only mark the second night of a back-to-back, but also the Heat’s fourth game in five nights.
Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Celtics:
Three-pointers have been a key part of the Heat’s winning formula while short-handed this season. But the shooting wasn’t good enough against the Celtics.
The Heat shot 17 of 44 (38.6 percent) from three-point range against Boston.
That’s not a bad shooting percentage. It just wasn’t enough to overcome 39.5 percent shooting on two-point attempts and 19 turnovers that the Celtics turned into 24 points.
It didn’t help that Boston didn’t let Miami dominate the three-point battle. The Celtics shot 16 of 42 (38.1 percent) from beyond the arc, with the Heat using its 2-3 zone defense for most of the night.
How good has the Heat’s outside shooting been this season with key faces missing? In the 22 games that Adebayo missed from Dec. 1- Jan. 15 after undergoing thumb surgery, Miami shot an efficient 39.9 percent from three-point range.
During that time, the Heat set a new franchise record for the most made threes in a month. Miami hit 229 threes while shooting 40.2 percent from deep in December.
That stretch is a big reason why the Heat entered with the NBA’s top team three-point percentage for the season at 37.7 percent.
Without Butler, Lowry and Tucker, the Heat could have used a big game from Adebayo. But foul trouble limited Adebayo.
After scoring just two points in the first quarter, Adebayo started to get going late in the first half with six points in the final 2:54 of the first half. Adebayo then remained aggressive to open the second half with four points in the first 1:47 of the first third quarter.
But Adebayo’s momentum came to an end when he was called for his fourth foul with 8:38 left in the third quarter. Adebayo also picked up a technical on the play, as he argued the call while walking to the bench.
Adebayo re-entered with 2:04 remaining in the third quarter, but he did not score again the rest of the way. He was eventually subbed out for good with 5:03 left in the fourth quarter with the Celtics ahead by more than 20 points and the start of Tuesday’s game less than 24 hours away.
Adebayo finished with 12 points on 5-of-11 shooting, five rebounds, five assists, three steals and one block in 32 minutes.
With only 10 available players, the Heat’s bench rotation included a few who hadn’t played much recently. It even forced a few different lineup combinations that Miami rarely uses.
The absence of three starters in Butler, Lowry and Tucker forced the Heat to use its 16th different starting lineup of the season: Gabe Vincent, Duncan Robinson, Max Strus, Caleb Martin and Bam Adebayo.
The bench rotation included usual sixth man Tyler Herro and backup center Dewayne Dedmon.
But Kyle Guy, who is on a two-way contract, and Chris Silva, who signed another 10-day deal on Monday as a COVID-19 replacement player, also played off the bench to complete the Heat’s nine-man rotation.
Guy, who did not play in the previous two games, played his most minutes since Jan. 19. He finished with four points on 1-of-5 shooting in 18 minutes.
Silva, who did not play in eight of the previous nine games, played his most minutes since joiing the Heat in late December. He finished with two points, nine rebounds, three assists and one block in 19 minutes.
The Heat’s only remaining available player on Monday, Udonis Haslem, entered the game with 5:03 left in the fourth quarter and the Celtics already in control.
The Heat also played Adebayo and Dedmon together for the final 2:46 of the first quarter, with Miami and Boston playing a 2-2 draw during that stretch. It marked the first time that the pair of centers have been used for more than a few seconds in a regular-season game since Dedmon joined the Heat late last season.
Adebayo and Silva even played a few minutes together against the Celtics. They also hadn’t played more than a few seconds together before Monday.
The Heat is working to navigate the back end of a rare but grueling stretch that includes four games in five nights, with a triple-overtime loss mixed in there.
Butler and Tucker were ruled out a few hours before Monday’s game because of injuries, but the busy stretch and heavy workload was also a factor.
Butler and Tucker played 52 minutes and 41 minutes, respectively, in Saturday’s triple-overtime loss to the Raptors. It marked the first time Butler, 32, has played more than 50 minutes in a game as a member of the Heat and the most minutes Tucker, 36, has played this season.
The belief is that Butler and Tucker’s injuries will be short-term issues and they could potentially play Tuesday against the Raptors. Butler missed his 19th game of the season and Tucker sat out his seventh game of the season on Monday.
“Look, we have to manage a lot of different things this season,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “I think everything we’ve already experienced is giving us a little bit of a better experience and direction on what to do. But there’s no perfect plan. We landed [Sunday], just wanted everybody to get treatment, get some rest and then figure out our plan of action for tonight.”
The Heat usually holds morning shootarounds ahead of night games. But the Heat canceled its Monday morning shootaround in Boston as it prepared for its third game in four nights just 48 hours after enduring a triple-overtime affair.
As for Saturday’s triple-overtime loss to the Raptors, Spoelstra was still thinking about it two days later.
“I’m a head coach, so we tend to beat ourselves quite a bit,” Spoelstra said before Monday’s game when asked about Saturday’s 124-120 defeat. “I’m totally fine right now. I also can remove myself from that and just be grateful for that whole experience. I think it’s really important for our team. I would have certainly loved to have been on the other side of it. We had five or six opportunities in the game to probably really take control of it. They probably felt the same way, but they came out with the win.”
It marked the Heat’s first triple-overtime game since the 2011-2012 season and just fourth triple-overtime game in franchise history.
“You can be disappointed, you can be frustrated, you can lose sleep over it like a head coach would,” Spoelstra said. “But also the other side of it, you can really be grateful for those experiences. I think it was the best basketball game of the year. It was super competitive, a lot of compelling things and I think we’ll also learn from that, as well.”
