Heat again wastes double-digit fourth-quarter lead. Takeaways from ‘disappointing’ loss to Knicks

The Miami Heat-New York Knicks rivalry is known to produce gritty and physical low-scoring games.

Friday’s matchup between Miami and New York continued that tradition, but it also produced a nightmarish fourth quarter for the Heat.

Despite leading by as many as 21 points in the third quarter and pulling ahead by 18 points with 11:35 left in the fourth quarter, the Heat (10-6) lost 100-98 to the Knicks (9-6) on Friday night at Madison Square Garden. It marked the Heat’s first loss during the group stage of the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament.

The Heat fell to 2-2 on its five-game trip. Miami wasted double-digit fourth-quarter leads in both losses during the trip.

“That’s disappointing,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of his team’s late-game struggles on Friday. “We had opportunities and we didn’t take advantage of it when we needed to and there’s karma to it. We ended up paying the price for that.”

How did the Knicks do it?

After falling behind by 18 points early in the fourth quarter, the Knicks went on a huge 28-7 run to completely flip the game and take a three-point lead with 1:24 to play.

RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Jalen Brunson led the fourth-quarter charge for the Knicks, scoring eight points apiece to combine for 24 of the Knicks’ 29 points in the period.

The Heat trimmed the deficit to one point after Bam Adebayo hit two free throws with 15.1 seconds left.

With so little time remaining, the Heat was forced to foul and Brunson made one of two free throws to give the Knicks a two-point lead with 11.3 seconds remaining.

With one more chance for the Heat to tie or win the game, Butler went for the win and took a step-back three that rolled off the rim as the final buzzer sounded.

“I definitely thought that was going in,” Butler said of that final shot attempt from three-point range. “... I’m always going to go for the win. Myself and everybody else is riding with me. We’re going to live with the result. But I guarantee I’m making the next one.”

The Knicks won the fourth quarter 29-11 to complete the comeback. The Heat shot just 3 of 21 (14.3 percent) from the field and 1 of 8 (12.5 percent) from three-point range during its fourth-quarter collapse.

Butler and Adebayo led the Heat with 23 points and 21 points, respectively. But they combined for just six points in the fourth quarter.

Brunson scored a game-high 24 points on 10-of-16 shooting from the field for the Knicks.

“I guess we got complacent and we let them come back,” said Heat rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr., who finished the loss with 15 points, five rebounds and four assists off the bench. “But we just got to take it as a learning experience.”

The Heat is right back at it on Saturday, closing its five-game trip against the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center (6 p.m., Bally Sports Sun). Saturday’s contest also marks the end of a brutal 10-game stretch for the Heat that includes nine on the road.

Five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Knicks on Friday:

The Heat faces a must-win game on Tuesday against the Milwaukee Bucks just to have a chance to advance to the quarterfinals of the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament.

Friday’s loss dropped the Heat to 2-1 during the four-game group stage.

Here are the current standings for the Heat’s five-team group for the tournament: 1. Bucks (3-0), 2. Knicks (2-1), 3. Heat (2-1), 4. Charlotte Hornets (1-2), 5. Washington Wizards (0-4).

The winner of each of the six five-team groups and two wild cards (the team from each conference with the best record in group play that finished second in its group) will advance to the knockout quarterfinal round of the tourney.

To have any chance of getting past the group stage and advancing to the quarterfinals by either winning its group or claiming the Eastern Conference wildcard spot, the Heat needs to win its final group play game on Tuesday against the Bucks at Kaseya Center.

But even if it wins Tuesday, the Heat’s In-Season Tournament fate will be determined by tiebreakers.

A loss to the Bucks on Tuesday would eliminate the Heat from the tournament.

Here’s how the tiebreakers work, which would come into play for the Heat if it wins Tuesday:

If two or more teams are tied within a group, the tie among the teams will be broken according to the following tiebreakers (in sequential order): head-to-head record in group play, point differential in group play, total points scored in group play, regular-season record from last regular season and random drawing.

If two or more teams are tied for the wild card in a conference, the tie among the teams will be broken following the same tiebreaker protocol, with the exception of the head-to-head record in group play. Ties within groups will be broken before the calculation of wild card tiebreakers.

The Heat’s point differential is at plus-11, which ranks third-best in its group behind the first-place Bucks (plus-39) and second-place Knicks (plus-18).

The Heat played its first game of the season without both Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson, and the offense struggled.

Herro and Robinson have combined to average 37.4 points per game this season while shooting 42.3 percent on 14.7 three-point attempts per game. As expected, the Heat’s offense was shaky without two of its top outside shooters and scorers.

The Heat shot just 39.1 percent from the field and 10 of 37 (27 percent) from three-point range in Friday’s loss.

The Heat actually scored 87 points on 47 percent shooting from the field through the first three quarters, but Miami’s offensive numbers plummeted during its 11-point fourth quarter.

The Heat’s 11 points in Friday’s fourth quarter were the fewest fourth-quarter points it has scored since totaling six points in the final period of a loss to the Orlando Magic on Jan. 3, 2020.

The Heat finished Friday’s loss with an offensive rating of 99 points scored per 100 possessions, which is Miami’s second-worst single-game offensive rating of the season.

The Heat’s best offense came off the Knicks’ mistakes, scoring 25 points off 19 turnovers from New York. But once the Knicks started making shots in the fourth quarter, the Heat struggled to generate quality offense in half-court situations when the game slowed down.

These fourth-quarter issues aren’t new for the Heat, as it now holds the NBA’s second-worst fourth-quarter offensive rating this season.

“As soon as we start walking into our offense in the fourth quarter, that’s our kryptonite,” Spoelstra said.

Herro has missed eight straight games after spraining his right ankle in the Heat’s Nov. 8 win over the Memphis Grizzlies.

But Friday marked the first game that Robinson has missed this season. He injured the thumb on his shooting hand during Wednesday’s win over the Cleveland Cavaliers and he was diagnosed with a sprained right thumb after an MRI on Friday. The Heat has labeled Robinson as day-to-day.

“This will be a short-term thing,” Spoelstra said before Friday’s game when asked about Robinson’s injury. “How long that will be, I don’t know. But we can wrap our minds around coming up with a game plan to put up enough points on the board and do it a slightly different way.”

Herro started in the first eight games he appeared in this season before his injury, and Robinson had started seven straight games in place of the injured Herro before missing his first game of the season on Friday.

Without both Herro and Robinson against the Knicks, Josh Richardson made his second start of the season on Friday alongside Kyle Lowry, Butler, Haywood Highsmith and Adebayo. Richardson finished the loss with 15 points, two assists and two steals in 34 minutes.

The Heat has already used an NBA-high 10 different starting lineups through the first 16 games of the season.

“I just think we just got stagnant,” Butler said of the Heat’s offensive issues in Friday’s fourth quarter. “We didn’t really know where the ball was supposed to go, guys not in their place, not whipping the ball around the way we’re supposed to. That’s never been our formula for success. So we let one slip away. I hope this is the last one. But for some odd reason, I just got a feeling we’re going to have another lead and give it up some other time. I just hope that we win when we do that.”

Butler did his best Robinson and Herro impression, continuing his early-season three-point surge. But Butler missed an important one on the final possession.

Unable to turn to the elite shooting of Robinson and Herro to provide three-pointers on Friday, the Heat needed others to make outside shots.

Butler answered the call, finishing 3 of 5 from behind the arc to continue to take and make more threes this season. However, he missed what would have been a game-winning three as the final buzzer sounded on Friday.

But Butler is still shooting an ultra-efficient 17 of 41 (41.5 percent) from three-range this season.

Not only is Butler making threes at a standout rate, he has also attempted more this season. He’s averaging 2.9 three-point attempts per game, which would be the most he has put up per game since joining the Heat in the 2019 offseason.

Butler, who is in his fifth season with the Heat, shot just 26.6 percent on 1.9 three-point attempts per game in his first four regular seasons with the team.

At this pace, Butler would finish this regular season with 99 made threes. The most three-pointers Butler has made in a season since landing with the Heat is 36 and that happened last regular season.

As if missing two key rotation players wasn’t enough, the Heat also learned Friday that guard Dru Smith will miss the rest of the season.

An MRI confirmed that Smith suffered a season-ending third degree ACL sprain in his right knee. The injury will require surgery.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Spoelstra said. “You really feel for Dru.”

Smith hurt his knee during the Heat’s win over the Cavaliers on Wednesday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse when he attempted to close out on a Max Strus corner three-point attempt.

The court in Cleveland is elevated for better fan sight lines, featuring a ledge with a drop-off in front of each bench. Smith was injured when he inadvertently stepped over that ledge.

While attempting to close out on Strus’ corner three-point shot, Smith jumped in the air and landed with his right foot on the edge of the ledge in front of the Cavaliers’ bench. Smith’s right leg then awkwardly slipped off the edge and he immediately grabbed his right knee.

“You feel heartbroken that it was that kind of injury, when you feel like it could have been avoided,” Spoelstra said. “I don’t know, maybe this is something that can be addressed with the league moving forward. I doubt anything will change with the floor. It is a hazard in our mind and probably in a lot of other teams’ minds, too. You just don’t really voice it because you just kind of escape without incident. But I believe that’s the only court like that in the league, where there’s an eight-inch drop-off from there to the ground.”

Smith, 25, appeared in nine games this season after being promoted from a two-way contract to a standard contract just days before the start of the regular season.

While not in the rotation when the Heat’s roster was close to full health, Smith provided much-needed depth at point guard. Lowry is the only other true point guard on Miami’s 14-man standard roster.

With a short-handed roster, Cole Swider played his first meaningful moments for the Heat on Friday.

After Richardson was elevated to the starting group with Herro and Robinson out, the Heat used a bench rotation of Kevin Love, Jaquez, Caleb Martin and Swider.

Love, Jaquez and Martin are regular members of the Heat’s bench unit, but Swider is not.

Swider, who is one of three players on a two-way contract with the Heat, actually just re-joined the Heat on Thursday after recently playing in three games with the Heat’s G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

Swider, a three-point shooting forward, finished Friday’s loss scoreless but dished out two assists in six minutes.

Knowing the Heat needed to get three-pointers up with Herro and Robinson unavailable, Swider was aggressive with three field-goal attempts (two three-point attempts) during his only stint of the night when he played the first 6:21 of the second quarter.

Swider, who spent last season with the Los Angeles Lakers as a two-way contract player, had only appeared in one game for the Heat this season before Friday’s opportunity. The first appearance came when he played the final 2:02 of a 16-point loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Oct. 28.

The Heat had just 11 available players against the Knicks.

Along with missing Herro, Robinson and Smith, the Heat was without Nikola Jovic (G League assignment), Orlando Robinson (G League assignment), R.J. Hampton (right knee sprain) on Friday.