Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 134-126 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers (45-25) on Thursday night at Kaseya Center. The Heat (38-32) now heads back on the road for a game against the Rockets in Houston on Saturday:
After a strong first half, the Heat fell victim to Lakers star Luke Doncic’s greatness and lost its third straight game.
The Heat started fast, ending the first quarter with a 42-29 lead and pulling ahead by as many as 15 points in the second quarter. But the Lakers chipped away at that deficit, entering halftime in a six-point hole.
But Doncic caught fire to begin the second half, making three threes in the first three minutes of the third quarter to five Los Angeles its first lead of the night at 72-71 with 9:05 left in the third period.
Doncic’s shot-making sparked a 31-12 run for the Lakers, turning a six-point halftime deficit into a 13-point lead just seven minutes into the second half.
The Lakers ended up outscoring the Heat 38-23 in the third quarter to take control of the game and enter the fourth quarter with a 97-88 advantage.
The Lakers never looked back, leading the rest of the way on their way to the eight-point win.
The Heat pulled within four points multiple times in the final minutes, but that’s the closest it got. Every time the Heat cut the deficit to four down the stretch, it seemed like Doncic made a shot to hold off Miami.
Doncic scored 39 points in the second half, including 20 in the fourth quarter. He finished with a season-high 60 points on 18-of-30 shooting from the field, 9-of-17 shooting on threes and 15-of-19 shooting from the foul line, which is the most points that any player has ever scored against the Heat in franchise history.
James Harden held the previous record, scoring 48 points against the Heat as a member of the Houston Rockets on Feb. 28, 2019.
The Lakers, which sits in third place in the Western Conference, won their eighth straight game despite playing on the backend of a brutal back-to-back set. The Lakers arrived to their Miami hotel around 5 a.m. on Thursday morning after their victory over the Rockets in Houston on Wednesday ended around midnight Eastern Standard Time.
Bam Adebayo, who returned after missing Tuesday’s loss to the Charlotte Hornets with right calf tightness, led the Heat with a team-high 28 points on 9-of-19 shooting from the field, 3-of-8 shooting on threes and 7-of-10 shooting from the foul line, 10 rebounds and two assists in 38 minutes.
Heat guard Tyler Herro added 21 points on 8-of-19 shooting from the field and 4-of-10 shooting on threes, eight rebounds and five assists in 33 minutes.
But the Heat wilted in the second half, shooting just 6 of 22 (27.3 percent) on threes and committing eight turnovers over the final two quarters.
Thursday’s loss dropped the Heat further into play-in tournament territory.
The Heat, which only has 12 regular-season games left to play, moved from seventh to eight place in the Eastern Conference standings.
After Thursday’s defeat, the No. 8 Heat (38-32) fell one loss behind the No. 7 Orlando Magic (38-31) and No. 6 Atlanta Hawks (38-31) in the East.
The Heat is also three losses behind the No. 5 Toronto Raptors (39-29).
The NBA’s play-in tournament features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.
The Heat, which has needed to qualify for the playoffs through the NBA’s play-in tournament in each of the last three seasons, needs to finish among the East’s top six teams to clinch a playoff spot and avoid the play-in tournament.
Lakers star forward LeBron James tied an impressive NBA record on Thursday and got a rare win in Miami.
With Thursday’s appearance, James tied Robert Parish for the most all-time regular-season games played with 1,611 games under his belt.
With Thursday’s win, James also improved to 3-8 in games that he has played in against the Heat in Miami since he left the organization in 2014.
James continued to impress after turning 41 on Dec. 30, totaling 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the field, 15 rebounds and 10 assists for his second triple-double of the season in Thursday’s win over the Heat.
James, who won two of his four NBA championships with the Heat in 2012 and 2013, entered Thursday averaging 21.4 points, 5.6 rebounds, 6.8 assists and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 51.4 percent from the field and 31.8 percent on threes in his 23rd NBA season.
Spoelstra, who was James’ head coach during his four-year tenure with the Heat from 2010-14, praised his former player’s longevity before Thursday’s game.
“You just have to absolutely respect his level of competitive spirit,” Spoelstra said. “He’s competing against not only the entire league, but he’s competing against Father Time and he’s giving Father Time hell. He really is. You have to respect that. That doesn’t happen by accident.”
The Heat got Adebayo back from injury, but was still without two rotation players.
The Heat was missing sixth man Jaime Jaquez Jr. (left hip tightness) and starter Andrew Wiggins (left big toe sesamoiditis) on Thursday.
It marked the sixth game that Jaquez has missed this season and the first game he has missed since Jan. 17. Jaquez, who is one of the top candidates for this season’s NBA Sixth Man of the Year award, is averaging 15 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game this season.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Jaquez hurt his hip during Tuesday’s loss to the Hornets in Charlotte. Jaquez was limited to just 20 minutes on Tuesday, including only five minutes in the second half.
“He’s already done a ton of treatment,” Spoelstra said of Jaquez before Thursday’s game. “He’s starting to feel better. So we’ll treat him day to day.”
Wiggins missed his seventh straight game with his toe injury. He’s averaging 15.9 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.1 steals and one block per game this season.
“He’s making progress,” Spoelstra said of Wiggins on Thursday. “He’s not ready to go tonight. He still has to ramp up, but we’re encouraged by the progress he’s made in the last few days.”
The Heat was also without Vlad Goldin (G League), Trevor Keels (G League), Terry Rozier (not with team) and Jahmir Young (G League) against the Lakers.
Despite being on the backend of a brutal back-to-back set following Wednesday night’s win in Houston, the Lakers were missing only Maxi Kleber (back strain) for Thursday’s contest in Miami.
Those absences led to the Heat using its 25th different starting lineup this season, with Simone Fontecchio making only his second start of the season and Norman Powell playing as a reserve for just the second time this season.
The Heat opened Thursday’s game with a starting lineup of Davion Mitchell, Herro, Pelle Larsson, Fontecchio and Adebayo.
Not only did Thursday mark this lineup’s first start of the season, but it also was the first time this five-man combination has been used in any game this season.
Fontecchio finished the start with seven points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field and 1-of-3 shooting on threes in 19 minutes.
This had Powell playing as a reserve for the second time in the last three games after starting in his first 49 appearances of the season.
Powell was part of a Heat bench rotation that also included Kel’el Ware, Dru Smith and Kasparas Jakucionis on Thursday.
Powell totaled 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field, 1-of-5 shooting on threes and 5-of-5 shooting from the foul line, two rebounds, three assists, one steal and one block in 33 minutes off the bench.