New starting group, establishing an identity and other takeaways from Heat’s big win over Magic

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 121-95 blowout win over the Orlando Magic (27-24) on Tuesday night at Kaseya Center to improve to 1-1 on its four-game homestand. The Heat (27-24) is right back at it on Wednesday, continuing the homestand against the San Antonio Spurs (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun) on the second night of the back-to-back set:

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has made it clear that defense needs to be the identity of this team. The Heat played to its identity on Tuesday.

The Heat’s defense was suffocating, limiting the Magic to 95 points on 43.8 percent shooting from the field and 10-of-35 (28.6 percent) shooting from three-point range. The Magic also committed 18 turnovers that the Heat turned into 19 points on its way to finishing with a season-high 27 fast-break points.

“It starts with the defensive activity, the physicality, doing things with force and focus and letting some offense feed off of that defense while we’re working through things right now,” Spoelstra said. “We definitely had some transition opportunities off of great defensive stops and we looked fast out there.”

Orlando doesn’t feature the best offense in the NBA, entering with the league’s 24th-ranked offensive rating this season.

But the Heat’s defensive performance was still impressive, as it held an opponent under 100 points for the first time since Jan. 15. The Heat is 6-0 this season when holding its opponent under 100 points.

The Heat also allowed just 97.9 points per 100 possessions for its fourth-best single-game defensive rating of the season.

The result was the Heat’s first double-digit win since defeating the Charlotte Hornets 104-87 on Jan. 14 and the Heat’s second-most lopsided win of the season. Miami never trailed in the game.

The Heat’s defense was dominant from the start Tuesday, as the Magic had just 33 points with 3:45 left in the first half. That allowed the Heat to open a 20-point lead late in the second quarter, but the Magic closed the first half on a 16-3 run to cut the deficit to seven entering halftime.

The Magic went on to pull within five points early in the second half.

That’s when the Heat went on a big 34-15 run to regain control and take a 24-point lead late in the third quarter.

The Magic made one last push, cutting the deficit to 10 with 7:47 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Jimmy Butler made sure the Magic’s run ended there, hitting back-to-back threes and then making a short jumper to go on his own personal 8-0 run. Butler’s spurt pushed the Heat’s lead back up to 18 points with 6:18 to play and put the Magic away.

The Heat’s offense also won the battle against the Magic’s top-five defense, scoring 121 points on 54 percent shooting from the field and 13-of-36 (36.1 percent) shooting on threes while recording 31 assists. Seven Heat players scored double-digit points.

“Playing a collaborative game offensively benefits everybody,” Spoelstra said. “We’re at our best when everybody is a live weapon and you saw that tonight.”

Butler led the way with a team-high 23 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field, 2-of-4 shooting on thees and 9-of-12 shooting from the foul line, eight rebounds, eight assists and three steals.

Terry Rozier turned in his best game since being traded to Miami two weeks ago, recording 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting on threes, six rebounds and seven assists in his eighth game with the Heat.

Bam Adebayo added 14 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field, eight rebounds and three assists while posting a game-best plus/minus of plus-32 in 30 minutes.

Tyler Herro contributed 14 points, three rebounds and four assists.

Since the Heat’s seven-game losing streak, the Heat has won three of its last four games. The Heat has allowed just 104.4 points per 100 possessions for the NBA’s second-best defensive rating during this four-game span.

“I’ve always felt this way, there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of adversity of this league,” Spoelstra said. “Success can be the worst teacher and it can be the worst formula sometimes. If you just get endless amount of success in a regular season, you’re just not really dealing with the truth. We’ve had to deal with the truth. We’ve had to deal with some very hard realities of why we haven’t been able to win the way we want to.

“As long a you approach it the right way and you rally around solutions, rally around each other and get to work, you can actually have breakthroughs. I’m not going that far right now to say we’ve had a breakthrough. We still got a long way to go. But at least it’s a start, these four games are closer to our identity.”

The Heat made another change to its starting lineup, using its 27th different starting unit in the 51st game of the season.

The Heat moved Haywood Highsmith to the bench and started Caleb Martin at forward in his place on Tuesday against the Magic. It marked Martin’s 13th start of the season.

Martin opened the game alongside the Heat’s other four regular starters — Rozier, Herro, Butler and Adebayo.

Before starting Tuesday’s contest, this lineup had played just 11 minutes together since the Heat acquired Rozier via trade on Jan. 23.

Their first time starting together went well for the Heat.

This group began Tuesday’s game by building a 16-4 lead before the Heat made its first substitution of the night.

They then went on to open the second half by outscoring the Magic 12-7 before the Heat turned to its bench.

The Heat’s new starting lineup outscored the Magic by 14 points in 16 minutes together on Tuesday.

Martin finished the win with 11 points, three rebounds, one assist and one steal in 25 minutes.

“Everyone knows Caleb’s energy that he brings on both sides,” Herro said. “He’s a Swiss Army Knife on defense. And him catching and going and being that fifth guy in the starting five who can really attack off catches, making closeouts extremely difficult to guard for the other team.”

The Heat continues to rotate through different frontcourt options to play alongside Adebayo. Nikola Jovic started 10 straight games alongside Adebayo in the frontcourt in January and Highsmith started seven straight games in the frontcourt next to Adebayo before Martin was moving into that role on Tuesday.

Along with the new starting lineup, Tuesday marked one of the only times the Heat has been whole this season. So the bench rotation looked a little different against the Magic.

The Heat entered Tuesday with the fourth-most missed games in the league this season due to injury at 161 games, according to Spotrac’s tracker.

But after dealing with injury issues for the first three months of the season, the Heat’s full contingent of rotation players was available for just the second time this season on Tuesday. The first time came less than two weeks ago in the Heat’s Jan. 27 loss to the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

The only Heat players unavailable against the Magic were RJ Hampton (G League) and Dru Smith (season-ending knee surgery).

So, how did the Heat’s bench rotation look on Tuesday?

The Heat used Jaime Jaquez Jr., Josh Richardson, Kevin Love and Duncan Robinson to complete its nine-man rotation before emptying its bench late in the blowout victory.

“I’m not going to give you all of my thought process on this,” Spoelstra said when asked about the changes to the Heat’s rotation. “You can look at it a couple different ways. It’s too bad that we’re getting to this kind of deal at this point of the season. Or you look at it like you just deal with whatever. All of these are great experiences for your team to go through adversity.”

The Heat’s revamped rotation included extended stretches where Butler anchored bench lineups while Adebayo and Herro played most of their minutes together. Another notable change: Butler was on the court to begin the fourth quarter instead of starting the fourth quarter on the bench before re-entering the game midway through the period like he usually does.

“I like it,” Butler said of the rotation tweaks. “I think it makes everybody more comfortable. Maybe the ball moves a little bit more with different guys in that lineup. I don’t think that’s a problem as long as you win. We did that, it looked good and I bet that’s what we’re going to go to from now on.”

Robinson, who missed the previous three games while in the NBA’s concussion protocol, returned to finish the win with nine points on 1-of-4 shooting from three-point range in 22 minutes.

This meant that Highsmith was the odd man out against the Magic.

Highsmith started the previous seven games, but only played the final 3:06 of Tuesday’s lopsided win after being moved out of the starting lineup.

If it wasn’t for the Heat emptying the bench late in the fourth quarter, Highsmith would have received his first DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) of the season.

Highsmith entered Tuesday averaging six points, 2.9 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.9 steals and 0.5 blocks per game while shooting 43.1 percent from the field and 37.4 percent from three-point range this season. He has established himself as one of the Heat’s best and most versatile perimeter defenders.

The first time the Heat was whole this season less than two weeks ago, Richardson was the one who received his first DNP-CD of the season. But it was Highsmith who was out of the rotation on Tuesday.

The other available and active Heat players out of the Heat’s rotation against the Magic were Orlando Robinson, Nikola Jovic and Thomas Bryant.

“We’re still going to need everybody,” Spoelstra said. “You still look at H (Highsmith) and Niko, they’ve given us phenomenal minutes when they were plugged in there. And our depth at the center position, as well. We went with what we went with tonight and we’ll see if we can continue this.”

The Heat’s dominance over the Magic continued and this win could be very important later this season.

Tuesday’s victory marked the Heat’s ninth straight home win over the Magic, a winning streak that dates back to January 2020. That’s the longest such streak over the Magic in Heat history.

The Heat has also won 14 of its last 18 matchups, home and away, against the Magic.

Making Tuesday’s win especially important is the fact that the Heat clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Magic with the victory. That’s because the Heat won the four-game regular-season series over the Magic, 3-1.

This matters, considering the Heat and Magic currently hold the same record at 27-24. Because of the tiebreaker, the Heat is in seventh place ahead of the eighth-place Magic in the Eastern Conference standings.

“We talked about it this morning,” Herro said of the importance of Tuesday’s win. “Just bringing a playoff mindset tonight, just being so close in the standings with them.”