Heat’s surging offense delivers rare blowout win. Takeaways from victory over Grizzlies

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 138-119 blowout win over the Memphis Grizzlies (41-27) on Wednesday night at Miami-Dade Arena to sweep its quick two-game homestand. The Heat (38-33) now travels to take on the Chicago Bulls on Saturday to open a short two-game trip:

The Heat put together its best offensive performance of the season to earn a rare double-digit win, as it works to avoid the play-in tournament.

The Heat shot an ultra-efficient 59.8 percent from the field, 13 of 29 (44.8 percent) on threes and 27 of 33 (81.8 percent) from the foul line to score a season-high 138 points on Wednesday. Miami also dished out 33 assists to just 13 turnovers.

The result was the Heat’s season-best single-game offensive rating: 135.3 points scored per 100 possessions.

“Our paint attacks and our three-point shooting were synergistic tonight and the guys were just playing without really a whole lot of thought,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “If a guy was open, you would pass it to them. All of us could probably complicate things more than we need to. I think Pat [Riley] used to always say that the first fundamental law of offense is if there’s an open man, pass it to him. We did that tonight.”

That helped push the Heat to its eighth double-digit win of the season and its first double-digit win in almost two months since a 26-point victory over the Pelicans in New Orleans on Jan. 18. Miami closed last season with 31 double-digit wins.

Wednesday also represented the Heat’s third-most lopsided win this season behind a 26-point road win over the Pelicans in January and a 21-point road win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Oct. 26.

“I literally had to look at the scoreboard probably 10 times during that fourth quarter, like is my math right?” Spoelstra said with a grin after the Heat’s rare lopsided win. “And I say that out of respect. So Memphis, don’t take that the wrong way. We just haven’t had many of these this year.”

Maybe the most impressive part of the Heat’s offensive performance on Wednesday was that it came against a quality defense. The Grizzlies entered with the NBA’s top defensive rating since the All-Star break and for the season.

But the Heat had no problems generating efficient offense against the Grizzlies.

The Grizzlies’ final lead of the night came late in the first quarter, as the Heat closed the opening period ahead by two points and led the rest of the way. Miami’s lead ballooned to as many as 28 points.

Seven Heat players finished with double-digit points.

Bam Adebayo led the way with a team-high 26 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field and 6-of-8 shooting from the foul line to go with eight rebounds, three assists and three blocks.

Tyler Herro added 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting from the field, 2-of-6 shooting on threes and 4-of-4 shooting from the foul line to go with four rebounds and six assists.

Jimmy Butler finished with 23 points while shooting 6 of 11 from the field and 11 of 12 from the foul line, eight rebounds, six assists and two steals in 28 minutes. He did not play in the fourth quarter because of the lopsided score.

Max Strus recorded 12 points, two rebounds and six assists.

Caleb Martin contributed 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting on threes, three rebounds, one assist and two steals.

Gabe Vincent and Kevin Love each scored 10 points.

Offense has not been a strength for the Heat this season, as it still owns the league’s fifth-worst offensive rating (scoring 111.6 points per 100 possessions).

But things have been trending in a positive direction lately. The Heat has the NBA’s ninth-ranked offensive rating (scoring 117.6 points per 100 possessions) in the last 10 games.

A big reason for the Heat’s season-long offensive struggles is the fact that is holds the league’s fourth-worst team three-point percentage at 33.9 percent. But a big reason behind the recent offensive surge is more threes are going on, as the Heat is shooting 39.3 percent from behind the arc in the last 10 games.

With Wednesday’s win, the seventh-place Heat is now two games behind the sixth-place Brooklyn Nets and three games behind the fifth-place New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference standings. Miami also moved three games ahead of the eighth-place Atlanta Hawks.

With only 11 regular-season games left on its schedule, the Heat needs to keep winning to escape the play-in tournament. To do that, Miami would have to finish as a top-six playoff seed in the East.

Butler’s incredible post-All-Star break run continued.

Following Wednesday’s win, Butler is averaging 25.8 points, 6.6 rebounds, five assists and 1.6 steals per game while shooting 59.9 percent shooting from the field and 8 of 16 (50 percent) on threes in 12 games since the All-Star break.

“He’s been doing this since All-Star break and we need every bit of it,” Spoelstra said after Butler’s 23-point effort against the Grizzlies. “He’s not going to take his foot off the pedal and none of us want him to at all defer. He’s got to go, go, go.”

One of the most underrated aspects of this stretch for Butler is the team-high 35 offensive rebounds (2.9 per game) he has grabbed since the break.

Since the start of February, Butler has totaled a team-high 58 offensive rebounds (3.1 per game) in 19 games. Adebayo is a distant second place on the Heat in this department with 27 offensive rebounds since the start of February.

How important has Butler been to the Heat’s success since the All-Star break? Miami has outscored opponents by 0.7 points per 100 possessions with him on the court, but has been outscored by 17.6 points per 100 possessions when he has been on the bench during this time.

The only rotation player the Heat was missing on Wednesday was center Cody Zeller.

Zeller sat out his second straight game after breaking his nose in Saturday’s loss to the Magic in Orlando.

But Zeller’s return doesn’t seem to be far away. Spoelstra said Zeller will be able to play again after his broken nose is “fixed” and that “should hopefully happen in the next couple days.”

Spoelstra added that one of the reasons the injury has forced Zeller to miss multiple games is because he also broke his nose in October 2021 as a member of the Portland Trail Blazers.

“It doesn’t complicate it,” Spoelstra said when asked how Zeller’s previous nose injury affects his current one. “It just delays it by a couple days, that’s all. But he’s going to get it fixed.”

Zeller is expected to wear a mask when he returns, possibly the same one he wore last season with the Trail Blazers. He has played as the Heat’s backup center in each of the games he has been available for since signing with Miami during the All-Star break last month.

Along with Zeller, the Heat was without Jamal Cain (G League), Nikola Jovic (G League) and Orlando Robinson (G League) on Wednesday against the Grizzlies.

The Grizzlies were without two starters in Steven Adams (knee PCL sprain) and Ja Morant (league suspension). Memphis was also missing Brandon Clarke (Achilles tear), Jake LaRavia (back soreness) and Vince Williams Jr. (shoulder soreness).

Omer Yurtseven has filled in for Zeller as the Heat’s backup center during his absence, but did not get much playing time on Wednesday after a rough first stint.

Yurtseven logged seven minutes in Saturday’s loss to the Magic in Orlando after Zeller left the game early because of his broken nose. Yurtseven then played 11 minutes in Monday’s home win over the Utah Jazz with Zeller out.

But in the second game Zeller missed, Yurtseven was used for just 2:11 in the first half before only coming back in to play the final 4:44 of the game with the Heat already well in control on Wednesday.

Other than playing the final 4:44 of the blowout win, Yurtseven’s only playing time of the game came in the first quarter when he entered with 5:52 left in the opening period.

That’s because Yurtseven picked up three quick fouls and was quickly subbed out of the game with 3:41 remaining in the first quarter. Spoelstra appeared to be angry at Yurtseven’s defense during that short time, slamming his clipboard and staring at Yurtseven during a timeout huddle after Grizzlies guard Tyus Jones scored on an easy layup.

Yurtseven, who is in his second NBA season and will be a restricted free agent this upcoming summer, didn’t play again until late in the game. Spoelstra instead used 6-5 forward Haywood Highsmith as the backup center following Yurtseven’s first-quarter stint.

Highsmith, who did not play in the previous seven games after falling out of the rotation, finished with seven points, four rebounds and three assists against the Grizzlies.

Spoelstra said he anticipates that Yurtseven will have another opportunity to play as the backup center during the Heat’s road trip this upcoming weekend because Zeller needs to wait for the swelling to go down before undergoing a procedure on his nose.

“O is working,” Spoelstra said of Yurtseven, who missed most of the season after undergoing ankle surgery in November. “He’s doing what he needs to do behind the scenes and drilling and working and preparing and watching film. There’s a lot of expectations in those minutes. But he’ll be prepared, he’ll be ready.”

Another noteworthy aspect of the Heat’s evolving bench rotation on Wednesday: Victor Oladipo was not in it.

The Heat went with a five-man bench rotation of Strus, Martin, Kyle Lowry, Yurtseven and Highsmith before emptying the bench late in the game. The original plan appeared to be a four-man bench rotation, but Yurtseven’s first quarter issues led to Highsmith entering in the second quarter as the fifth reserve.

Oladipo received his first DNP-CD of the season on Wednesday. He has missed 33 games because of various injuries, but he played in each of the first 37 games he had been available for this season with 36 spent as a reserve and one as a starter.

Oladipo did not play in the 38th game he was available on Wednesday. Udonis Haslem was the only other available Heat player who did not get into the game against the Grizzlies.

“I don’t have a definitive answer for you right now or for anybody or even the locker room right now,” Spoelstra said when asked about the Heat’s work-in-progess rotation. “I mentioned that at shootaround. How it played out tonight is not necessarily what I had on my card and the first guy I talked to was Vic, obviously.

“We have not been in this situation for three or four months, where we’ve had everybody available. I had every intention to play him in that first quarter.”

Oladipo has averaged 8.4 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 2.4 turnovers per game while shooting 35.6 percent from the field and 36.5 percent from three-point range in 11 games since the All-Star break. The Heat has been outscored by 8.4 points per 100 possessions with Oladipo on the court during this 11-game stretch.