PHOENIX — Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 104-96 win over the Phoenix Suns (20-20) on Friday night at Footprint Center to close its five-game West Coast trip at 3-2.
The Heat (21-19) now returns to Miami to begin a four-game homestand on Sunday against the Brooklyn Nets:
1. Playing again with a short-handed roster, the quartet of Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, Victor Oladipo and Max Strus made sure the Heat returned home with a winning trip.
After Wednesday’s disappointing loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Heat bounced back with a win in Phoenix to close the trip with a winning 3-2 record and come home two games above .500.
Adebayo (21 points and 11 rebounds), Butler (20 points, five rebounds and six assists), Oladipo (26 points) and Strus (19 points) were the catalysts, combining for 86 of the Heat’s 104 points.
The Heat led by as many as nine points in the first half and entered halftime ahead 61-46 behind 26 combined points from Adebayo and Butler on 9-of-14 shooting from the field. Miami’s defense was key to entering halftime with the lead, limiting Phoenix to 39.5% shooting from the field and 3-of-13 (23.1%) shooting from three-point range in the first two quarters.
The Heat then looked to take full control in the second half, opening the third quarter on a 17-8 run to take a 14-point lead midway through the period.
But the Suns closed the third quarter with a 19-10 spurt to cut the deficit to just five points entering the final period.
That’s when Adebayo and Oladipo combined to score each of the Heat’s first 11 points of the fourth quarter to push the lead back up to 14 with 7:45 to play.
The Suns responded by scoring seven unanswered points to again cut the deficit back down to seven just 1:28 later. That’s when Strus erupted for seven straight points by converting on a four-point play while being fouled on a three-point attempt that went in and then hitting another three on the next offensive possession to extend the Heat’s lead to 14 with 4:52 to play.
The short-handed Suns continued to fight, finding themselves trailing by just six with 1:10 remaining. But with possession of the ball and a chance to continue cutting into the Heat’s lead, Butler deflected the inbounds off Suns center Deandre Ayton finger to force a critical Phoenix turnover with 50.3 seconds left.
The Suns never recovered. The Heat has won nine of its last 13 games after a 12-14 start to the season.
2.The Heat’s injury issues continued, with two starters missing Friday’s game.
The Heat were without starting forward Caleb Martin and starting guard Tyler Herro against the Suns. Martin missed his fifth game in the last 10 games after re-aggravating ankle and quadriceps injuries.
Martin was held out of two games in mid-December with a sprained left ankle and returned at less than 100% only to play three games before missing another two games because of a left quadriceps strain.
Martin returned from the quadriceps strain to play in both of the Heat’s games in Los Angeles this week, but he’s again feeling the effects of both injuries. Martin logged 21 minutes Wednesday’s loss to the Lakers in Los Angeles, tweaking his ankle and quadriceps issues during his time on the court.
“He kind of re-tweaked both of them in the Lakers game,” Spoelstra said. “I saw both of them happen. He rolled his ankle and then I think he got hit in his quad, where he’s had a lot of discomfort. So, yeah. We want to make sure that he’s feeling good and playing 30 minutes a night would probably not really help that.” Herro did not play on Friday after waking up with back spasms.
It marked the ninth game that he has missed this season and the first game that he has missed since Nov. 21.
Along with missing Herro and Martin, the Heat was without Jamal Cain (G League), Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Duncan Robinson (finger surgery) and Omer Yurtseven (left ankle surgery) on Friday.
That left the Heat with just 10 available players against the Suns. The Heat already entered Friday with the second-most missed games in the NBA (151 missed games) this season due to injury, according to Spotrac, and that number continued to grow.
3. But the Heat’s opponent was also dealing with bad injury luck for the third straight game on the trip.
After defeating a Los Angeles Clippers team missing star Kawhi Leonard on Monday and then losing to a Los Angeles Lakers team missing stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis on Wednesday, the Heat faced another injury-depleted opponent on Friday. The Suns were without leading scorer Devin Booker because of a left groin strain. It marked the sixth straight game that Booker has missed with the injury.
The Suns were also missing starting forward Cameron Johnson and backup guard Cameron Payne because of injuries.
But Booker was clearly the player Phoenix missed the most. The Suns fell to 2-9 in games without Booker this season. The Suns’ offense has been bad without Booker, entering Friday with an offensive rating of 107.7 points scored per 100 possessions when he hasn’t been on the court.
That would rank last in the NBA among teams for the season. It got worse for Phoenix when starting point guard Chris Paul was held out of Friday’s second half because of right hip soreness.
Paul recorded five points and one assist in 12 first-half minutes before exiting the game.
4. With six players out, including two starters, the Heat went with a short eight-man rotation on Friday.
The Heat used its 17th different starting lineup of the season, opening the game with a lineup that included Kyle Lowry, Strus, Butler, Haywood Highsmith and Adebayo.
Strus started in place of Herro and Highsmith started in place of Martin. This combination had logged just three minutes together this season prior to starting Friday’s game.
The Heat then used just a three-man bench rotation of Victor Oladipo, Gabe Vincent and Dewayne Dedmon. The only two available Heat players who did not get into Friday’s game were undrafted rookie center Orlando Robinson and 42-year-old forward Udonis Haslem.
After Heat coach Erik Spoelstra used both Dedmon and Robinson as the backup center in Wednesday’s loss in Los Angeles, he used only Dedmon on Friday.
Without many options to turn to, Lowry, Vincent and Oladipo played their first minutes together of the season.
5. The Heat somehow won despite not shooting well from deep for most of the game.
The Heat started Friday’s game 7 of 12 from three-point range, but made just five of its final 26 attempts to finish 12 of 38 (31.6%) from behind the arc. Oladipo and Strus were Miami’s most efficient outside shooters, shooting 9 of 18 from three-point range. The rest of the roster combined to shoot 3 of 20 on threes.
