Too many missed shots, turnovers, rebounding issues. Takeaways from Heat’s loss to Raptors

The shorthanded Miami Heat fell behind by 21 in the first half, rallied to tie the score in the third quarter, but ultimately couldn’t do enough to earn a second consecutive road win.

Without two starters in Tyler Herro (neck spasms) and Jimmy Butler (health and safety protocols), the Heat (6-8) made a lopsided game competitive for a few minutes in the second half but fell to the Toronto Raptors 101-81 on Friday at Amalie Arena in Tampa. Miami never led in the game.

The Heat defeated the Raptors (6-9) on Wednesday to begin its four-game trip.

“Having to fight back from 21 is not easy,” said Heat center Bam Adebayo, who finished with 14 points on 6-of-13 shooting, eight rebounds and four assists in 34 minutes. “You expend so much energy having to battle back from 21. We ran out of gas. But it’s no excuse. We were right there and we should have gotten it done.”

After the Heat rallied to tie Friday’s contest at 61 with 5:26 remaining in the third quarter, the Raptors responded by closing that period on a 12-3 run to regain control.

From the moment Miami tied the score in the third quarter, the Raptors outscored the Heat 40-20 the rest of the way.

One of the biggest differences in Friday’s game was the Raptors’ efficient three-point shooting. Toronto finished 17 of 40 from three-point range, compared to 7-of-31 shooting from deep for Miami.

The Raptors outscored the Heat 51-21 on threes.

Miami is 1-8 since the start of last season, including the playoffs, when making seven or fewer threes in a game.

“They were making shots. They got some open shots,” said Heat guard Goran Dragic, who scored 13 points on 5-of-12 shooting in 30 minutes. “We didn’t move on defense like we usually do. If you look at it, the first quarter was bad, then we fought back, and the third quarter we came back, and the last quarter was like the first one.”

The Heat now travels to Brooklyn, New York, to complete the road back-to-back set on Saturday against the Nets (8 p.m., Fox Sports Sun, NBA TV).

Here are five takeaways from the Heat’s loss to the Raptors:

The Heat will continue to play shorthanded for the rest of its four-game trip, with Herro sent home to Miami on Friday.

After returning to practice on Thursday in Tampa, Herro woke up Friday with more neck soreness and the team decided to send him home to Miami rather than have him push through the pain.

That means the Heat not only had to play Friday’s game against the Raptors without Herro, but he’ll also be unavailable for the final two games of the trip on Saturday and Monday against the Nets at Barclays Center.

Friday marks the fourth consecutive game Herro has missed because of the neck injury, and he’ll have missed six consecutive games due to the injury at the end of the trip.

Herro, who turned 21 on Wednesday, has averaged 17.6 points on 46.9 percent shooting, 6.7 rebounds and 3.8 assists in 10 games this season.

With Herro ruled out for the remainder of the trip, his next opportunity to return will be when the Heat returns to Miami for the start of a six-game homestand on Wednesday against the Denver Nuggets.

The Heat also remains without Butler and guard Avery Bradley because of the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Friday marked the sixth consecutive game both players have missed because of protocols, as their last game action came in Miami’s Jan. 9 road win against the Washington Wizards.

Heat center Meyers Leonard (left shoulder strain) also missed his sixth consecutive game Friday.

Butler, Bradley and Leonard did not travel with the Heat to Tampa for the start of its four-game trip, and the expectation is they’ll also miss the upcoming two road games against the Nets. Butler and Bradley have not resumed basketball activity yet.

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Turnovers and rebounding have been two of the Heat’s biggest problems this season, and they were again issues Friday.

Miami entered Friday averaging the most turnovers in the NBA at 18.3 per game and with the league’s highest turnover rate (percentage of plays that end with a team turnover) at 17.9 percent.

The Heat again struggled to avoid mistakes, as it committed 19 turnovers in the loss. The Raptors scored 22 points on those errors.

Toronto was also sloppy, with 22 turnovers of its own Friday. It marked just the second game Miami has lost since the start of last season when its opponent commits 20 or more turnovers.

As for rebounding, the Raptors outrebounded the Heat 45-32. Toronto scored 12 second-chance points on 12 offensive rebounds, and Miami grabbed just four offensive rebounds.

The Heat entered with the league’s second-worst offensive rebounding percentage (the percentage of available offensive rebounds a team grabs) at 22.4 percent.

Despite a season-high 22 turnovers for the Raptors on Friday, they still finished with more shot attempts because of the Heat’s ongoing turnover and rebounding issues. Toronto took 84 shots to Miami’s 77 shots.

The Heat has averaged a league-low 81.1 shot attempts per game this season.

“We just have to have more people helping out on the glass, and not just our bigs,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Whether that’s a key block out, rotation, jumping. We did force them into some misses. We just weren’t able to finish the defense. I didn’t even see the difference in shot attempts. But based on our turnovers and the second-chance opportunities, I’m sure they had a lot more shots on goal.”

Heat second-year guard Kendrick Nunn’s best stretch of games in nearly a year continued Friday.

Nunn followed up a 28-point game in Wednesday’s win over the Raptors with 22 points on 8-of-16 shooting, four rebounds, five assists and three steals off the bench on Friday.

It’s the first time Nunn has put together consecutive 20-point performances since February, when he scored 21 points against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Feb. 24 and 24 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Feb. 26.

Nunn has averaged 22.7 points on 58.1 percent shooting in the Heat’s last three games, as he has needed to play a bigger offensive role with Butler and Herro unavailable.

Before this three-game stretch, Nunn was averaging just 5.5 points on 40 percent shooting and 1.7 assists in limited playing time this season. He also struggled during last season’s Heat playoff run, averaging 6.1 points on 39.1 percent shooting, 2.1 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 15 games last postseason.

But this week, Nunn has looked more like the player he was for most of last season, when he made the All-Rookie First Team and finished second in the voting for the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award.

The Raptors were also missing a key player Friday, but All-Star guard Kyle Lowry’s replacement stepped up.

Norman Powell started in place of Lowry, who was unavailable because of an infection in his toe.

While Lowry is one of Toronto’s best players, Powell was able to fill the void on Friday with 23 points on 10-of-18 shooting.

Powell’s performance also helped make up for a cold shooting night for Raptors guard Fred VanVleet, who finished with 13 points on 4-of-14 shooting.

While the Heat will be shorthanded for its upcoming two games against the Nets, Brooklyn is on track to have all three of its superstars available against Miami.

As the Nets continue to manage Kevin Durant’s recovery from the torn Achilles that kept him out for all of last season, the team announced Friday that Durant would not play in Friday night’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

But the Nets trio of Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving are expected to play together for only the second time this season on Saturday against the Heat. Houston traded Harden to Brooklyn earlier this month and Irving recently returned from a seven-game absence due to personal reasons.

Durant, Harden and Irving combined for 96 points in their first game together as Nets teammates, a Wednesday double-overtime loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.