Takeaways from road loss to Jazz, as Heat’s injury and fourth-quarter issues continue

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 117-109 loss to the Utah Jazz (14-19) at Delta Center on Saturday night to fall to 1-1 on its five-game West Coast trip. The Heat (19-13) now heads to Los Angeles to take on the Clippers on Monday:

The Heat’s fourth-quarter problem made an appearance.

In a contest that included 25 lead changes and 12 ties, the Heat lost behind another poor fourth quarter. The result snapped Miami’s four-game winning streak.

With the score tied at 88 entering the fourth quarter, the Heat was outscored 29-21 in the final period to let the game slip away in the final minutes. The Heat has now lost the fourth quarter in 22 of the first 32 games of the season.

“If we brought a better defensive game, I think we would have been in a better position to win in a tough environment and a tough place on the road,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We just weren’t able to get it together, get enough defensive plays.”

The Heat, which entered with the NBA’s second-worst fourth-quarter net rating for the season, shot an inefficient 6 of 18 (33.3 percent) from the field and 0 of 6 from three-point range in the final period. Miami made just one field goal in the final 5:57 of the game.

Meanwhile, the Jazz got hot from three-point range to shoot 6 of 10 (60 percent) from deep in the fourth quarter after shooting 5 of 31 (16.1 percent) on threes through the first three quarters.

Things went in the wrong direction for the Heat midway through the fourth quarter. After the Heat took a three-point lead with 7:55 left, the Jazz went on a game-deciding 15-4 run to pull ahead by eight points with 3:42 to play.

The Heat made one last run, cutting the deficit to two points with 2:41 left. But the Jazz responded with six unanswered points to push its lead back up to eight points with 1:53 to play to put the Heat away.

Rookie Keyonte George led the Jazz’s fourth-quarter charge with 12 points on 3-of-4 shooting from three-point range in the period. George closed Utah’s win with 21 points.

Collin Sexton scored a team-high 22 points for the Jazz on 8-of-14 shooting from the field.

Center Bam Adebayo was the Heat’s best player on Saturday, finishing with 28 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field and 14-of-20 shooting from the foul line, 16 rebounds, three assists, three steals and three blocks. The 20 free-throw attempts set a new career-high for Adebayo.

Guard Tyler Herro contributed 25 points on 9-of-22 shooting from the field and 2-of-7 shooting on threes, six rebounds and six assists for the Heat. But Herro scored just two points and shot 1 of 6 from the field in the fourth quarter.

As a team, the Heat shot just 9 of 31 (29 percent) from three-point range while committing 16 turnovers in the loss. The Jazz took advantage to score 29 points off the Heat’s turnovers.

The Jazz also outscored the Heat 60-40 from inside the paint. It already marks the fifth game this season that the Heat has allowed 60 or more points from inside the paint after doing so in six games all of last regular season.

“We just never were able to contain them off the bounce, regardless of what the action was,” Spoelstra said. “I mean 60 in the paint. They did it off drives, cuts, against our zone. It didn’t really matter. They were pretty much living in the paint. We just could not corral that all game long.”

All of that was enough for the Heat to drop its fifth game of the season against a team that entered Saturday with a sub-.500 record. Miami fell to 14-5 this season against opponents that entered the day with a losing record.

“I feel like we came out with not enough energy,” Adebayo said. “We weren’t really getting into the ball and we weren’t really getting stops. For us to win games, we got to guard our yard. That’s many y mano.”

In his return from a calf injury, Heat star Jimmy Butler left Saturday’s loss early with a foot injury.

Butler returned to play on Saturday after missing the previous four games with a strained left calf. He was quiet in his return, taking his first field-goal attempt of the game with 3:14 left in the second quarter and scoring his first point of the game with 1:39 left in the second quarter.

Butler finished Saturday’s loss with eight points on 2-of-3 shooting from the field and 4-of-4 shooting from the foul line, two rebounds, one assist and one block in 23 minutes, but exited the game with 6:18 left in the third quarter with a right foot injury and did not return.

After committing a foul during a collision with Sexton, Butler grimaced and slowly walked back to the Heat’s bench before heading back to the locker room.

X-rays on Butler’s injured foot returned negative. Whether Butler receives an MRI on his foot will depend on how he’s feeling in the coming days.

Spoelstra said he didn’t have an update on Butler’s injury following the game.

Butler has already missed eight games this season and is now in danger of missing more after injuring his right foot.

Amid the Heat’s injury problems this season, Saturday marked just the eighth time in the Heat’s first 32 games that the Heat’s leading trio of Adebayo, Butler and Herro have played together. That number may be stuck at eight for the near future if Butler is forced to miss more time.

The Heat also lost Haywood Highsmith to what appeared to be a head injury late in Saturday’s game.

A woozy Highsmith had to be helped to the locker room with 37.8 seconds left in the fourth quarter following a hard collision with Sexton and did not return. It appeared that Highsmith took a blow to the head/neck area from Sexton.

Highsmith recorded four points, six rebounds, two steals and one block in 26 minutes off the bench before leaving Saturday’s loss early.

Highsmith has already missed 11 games this season with various injuries.

Butler and Highsmith’s early departures from Saturday’s game are just a continuation of the Heat’s season-long injury issues. Heat players have combined for the fourth-most missed games due to injury in the NBA this season at 98 games, according to Spotrac’s injury tracker.

The ongoing injury issues forced the Heat to use its league-leading 18th different starting lineup.

The Heat opened Saturday’s game with a lineup of RJ Hampton, Herro, Butler, Nikola Jovic and Adebayo.

While Adebayo, Butler and Herro are fixtures in the Heat’s starting unit when they’re healthy, Hampton and Jovic have spent most of the season out of the rotation.

Saturday marked Hampton’s fifth NBA appearance of the season and his second straight start. For Jovic, it was his sixth NBA appearance and second start of the season.

Hampton, who is on a two-way contract with the Heat, went scoreless and grabbed two rebounds in eight minutes. He played the first 8:06 of the game, but did not play again on Saturday as Spoelstra opted to use Highsmith in Hampton’s place to open the second half.

Jovic, who is in his second season after the Heat selected him late in the first round of last year’s draft, finished with six points, two rebounds and one assist while committing five fouls in 10 minutes.

Hampton and Jovic stepped into starting roles because the Heat was again missing a chunk of its usual rotation.

The Heat played without rotation regulars Caleb Martin (right ankle sprain), Kyle Lowry (head contusion) and Josh Richardson (low back discomfort) against the Jazz. Martin and Lowry missed their second straight game, and Richardson sat out his third straight game.

The Heat was also without Orlando Robinson (G League), Cole Swider (G League) and Dru Smith (season-ending knee injury) on Saturday.

Despite Saturday’s loss and all the injuries, the Heat enters 2024 in a decent spot.

Even after the defeat, the Heat will enter 2024 six games above .500. That’s better than last season, when the Heat entered 2023 with a middling 19-18 record.

Since a 1-4 start this season, the Heat has won 18 of the last 27 games to sit in fifth place in the Eastern Conference.

The Heat holds NBA’s 15th-ranked offensive rating, 13th-ranked defensive rating and 12th-ranked net rating.

Next up for the Heat are back-to-back games in Los Angeles — on Monday against the Clippers and Wednesday against the Lakers — before closing the five-game West Coast swing on Friday against the Phoenix Suns.