New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns (32) drives to the basket against Miami Heat guard Jaime Jaquez Jr. (11) and center Bam Adebayo (13) during the first quarter at Madison Square Garden. Brad Penner Brad Penner-Imagn Images
NEW YORK
Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 116-95 blowout loss to the New York Knicks (43-24) on Monday night at Madison Square Garden to close its two-game trip at 0-2 and drop its eighth straight game. The Heat (29-39) now returns to Miami to begin a five-game homestand on Wednesday against the Detroit Pistons:
The Heat’s misery continues, blowing yet another double-digit lead. It’s a type of misery that the Heat hasn’t felt in nearly two decades.
The Heat has now lost eight straight games for just the 13th time in the franchise’s 37 seasons. This eight-game skid is the Heat’s longest losing streak since dropping eight consecutive games in March 2008. The Heat had three losing streaks of at least eight games during its rough 15-win 2007-08 season.
With Erik Spoelstra taking over as the Heat’s head coach prior to the start of the 2008-09 season, this is also the first eight-game skid in Spoelstra’s 17 seasons at the helm. Spoelstra was third on the list for the most NBA games coached without an eight-game losing skid behind only Phil Jackson and Red Auerbach.
“We’re all getting tested,” Spoelstra said after the Heat’s latest loss. “I’ve said this before, including myself, there’s no one that’s absolved from this. I have not come up with enough answers for this team. I have to do a better job. Our group has to do a better job. We have to put our feet into the dirt and hold our ground at this point.”
The Heat actually started Monday’s contest strong, opening the game on a 12-0 run and pulling ahead by as many as 13 points early on.
But the Knicks, playing without injured All-Star guard Jalen Brunson, used a 15-0 run fueled by Karl-Anthony Towns to take their first lead of the night at 33-31 with 7:03 left in the first half.
The Heat eventually found its footing to regain a narrow 49-47 lead at halftime.
The Knicks took full control of the game from there, though, opening the third quarter on a 17-5 run to pull ahead by 10 points less than four minutes into the second half.
It turned out to be a disastrous third quarter for the Heat, which was dominated 41-15 in the period. That allowed the Knicks to blow the game open, turning their two-point halftime deficit into a 24-point lead at the end of three quarters.
The Heat shot just 7 of 19 (36.8 percent) from the field and 1 of 7 (14.3 percent) on threes while committing seven turnovers during its nightmarish third quarter.
The Knicks’ lead grew to as large as 27 points in the fourth quarter on their way to the 21-point win.
“We had a great first half and then they jumped on us to start the third and we were able to come back into it,” Spoelstra said. “And then the second half of the third, it just went.”
A big reason for another Heat loss: New York outscored Miami 48-18 from three-point range.
The Heat shot just 6 of 23 (26.1 percent) from behind the arc on Monday. Duncan Robinson was the only Heat player who made a three-pointer in the game until Pelle Larsson hit a three with 3:22 left in the fourth quarter.
Robinson shot 5 of 9 from deep to score a team-high 22 points in the defeat, while the rest of the Heat’s roster combined to go 1 of 14 on threes.
The Knicks also took advantage of 21 Heat turnovers, outscoring Miami 29-15 in points off turnovers.
The Heat’s leading duo of Bam Adebayo (12 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the field, seven rebounds, four assists, one steal and two blocks) and Tyler Herro (20 points on 10-of-18 shooting from the field, three rebounds and one assist) combined to total 32 points.
The Brunson-less Knicks were led by Mikal Bridges and Towns, who teamed up to score 51 points. Bridges finished with 28 points and Towns scored 23 points.
After Monday’s defeat, the Heat has now blown a double-digit lead in 18 losses this season. That ties the Utah Jazz for the most such collapses in the NBA this season.
“That’s the thing that we’ve been racking our time, our brains, everything, trying to find solutions for that,” Spoelstra said when asked about the Heat’s late-game issues and struggles in holding big leads. “We have not come up with solutions and we’ve pretty much tried everything. That’s why I said, I haven’t been able to come up with solutions for that. This has been one of the biggest challenges of a regular season that I’ve been a part of. And we just have to stay the course.”
The Heat is still almost a near-lock to make the NBA’s play-in tournament, which features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.
But with the Chicago Bulls defeating the Jazz on Monday, the Heat fell from ninth to 10th place in the Eastern Conference. The Heat and Bulls hold the same record, but the Bulls are ahead in the standings as the ninth place team in the East because they won the regular-season series over the Heat.
“We have to collectively get our mind right, where all of these losses don’t necessarily, they don’t have to impact the next game,” Spoelstra said. “That’s the mental discipline and that is a tough human condition to fight. It’s human nature to stack up some of these memories and let that affect us for the next game.”
Heat second-year forward Jaime Jaquez added: “It’s frustrating. We’re going through the dark days right now. I think as a team, we just got to come together and find a new fight these last however many games we got left.”
Herro said: “Anyone would just quit and get comfortable with losing and feel sorry for themselves. But obviously, nobody feels sorry for us. We have to dig ourselves out of this hole. It all starts in this locker room.”
Is Adebayo concerned that the Heat’s competitive spirit has disappeared?
“No. I’m going to keep willing that,” Adebayo answered. “I don’t care. When we step out there, we’re going to compete. Now as far as the games and the losses, you take that game by game. But every night we step on that court, I’m going to make sure I play hard and everybody else does.”
The Heat, which has been outscored by 55 points over its last two losses, now stands 10 games below the .500 mark for the first time since the 2016-17 season.
“We have to take strides, where we’re making progress,” Spoelstra said. “And it felt like we were making progress even with some of the losses in the last three weeks. We felt like we were making strides. The last two games haven’t felt like we’re making those kinds of strides.”
Another thing that hasn’t happened in a while happened on Monday: The Knicks clinched a sweep of their regular-season series with the Heat.
The Knicks won all three of their matchups against the Heat this regular season, sweeping their regular-season series with the Heat for the first time since the 1992-93 season. That’s more than three decades ago.
Over this same span, the Heat has swept its regular-season series with the Knicks seven different times.
The Knicks defeated the Heat 116-107 in Miami on Oct. 30 and then earned a 116-112 overtime win over the Heat in Miami on March 2 before winning their third and final matchup of the season against the Heat on Monday.
If all the losses weren’t bad enough, there’s a new Heat injury that kept a starter out against the Knicks.
After missing six of his first 17 games since being traded to the Heat in early February, Heat starting forward Andrew Wiggins also missed Monday’s contest because of a left lower leg contusion. He didn’t take part in Monday’s morning shootaround either, only undergoing treatment during the session.
Wiggins, 30, has averaged 18.3 points, 4.2 rebounds, 2.9 assists, one steal and one block per game while shooting 42.2 percent from the field and 30.9 percent on threes in 11 appearances since being moved to the Heat in the Jimmy Butler trade. But Wiggins has also now missed seven games because of injury or illness since joining the Heat.
After being dealt to the Heat, Wiggins has missed one game because of a stomach illness, five games with a sprained right ankle and now one game because of lower leg contusion.
The Heat also remained without Alec Burks (lower back strain), Josh Christopher (G League), Keshad Johnson (G League), Nikola Jovic (broken right hand), Dru Smith (left Achilles surgery) and Isaiah Stevens (G League) for Monday’s game in New York.
The Knicks were without Brunson (right ankle sprain), Ariel Hukporti (left knee meniscus surgery) and Kevin McCullar Jr. (G League) against the Heat.
Wiggins’ injury forced another change to the Heat’s starting lineup.
The Heat opened Monday’s game with a lineup of Herro, Robinson, Jaquez, Haywood Highsmith and Adebayo.
While it marked the fourth different starting lineup that the Heat has used in the last four games, this group has started games together before this season.
Monday was the fifth game that the Herro-Robinson-Jaquez-Highsmith-Adebayo lineup has started this season. This unit was outscored by two points in 13 minutes together against the Knicks.
Highsmith, who received a DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) in Saturday’s blowout loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, recorded two points on 1-of-5 shooting from the field and 0-of-2 shooting on threes, two rebounds, two assists and two steals in 27 minutes in Monday’s loss in his 40th start of the season.
Heat guard Terry Rozier’s rough season continues.
Rozier, who turned 31 on Monday, went scoreless and missed all three of his shot attempts in his six minutes of playing time during the Heat’s lopsided loss to the Knicks.
Rozier entered the game for his first and only action of the night with the Heat ahead by 13 points and 40.6 seconds left in the first quarter. By the time Rozier was subbed out of the game, the Knicks were ahead by two points with 7:03 remaining in the second quarter.
Rozier never re-entered the game after that brutal stint.
Rozier closed with a plus/minus of minus 15.
This is just the continuation of one of the worst seasons of Rozier’s NBA career.
Rozier entered Monday averaging 11.4 points per game on 39.8 percent shooting from the field and 30.2 percent shooting from three-point range in 58 appearances this season. That would be the fewest points he has averaged and the worst field-goal percentage he has recorded in a season since his fourth NBA season in 2018-19, with Rozier’s three-point percentage currently his worst for a season since his rookie year in 2015-16.
Rozier is one of only four players in the NBA who entered Monday shooting worse than 40 percent from the field and worse 31 percent on threes while playing in at least 50 games this season. That list also includes Brooklyn Nets guard Keon Johnson, Philadelphia 76ers guard Ricky Council IV and Orlando Magic guard Jett Howard.
Along with Rozier, the Heat used Kel’el Ware, Davion Mitchell, Kyle Anderson and Larsson off the bench against the Knicks to complete its 10-man rotation.
That left Kevin Love as the only available Heat player who didn’t get into Monday’s game.
This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 10:08 PM.
Miami Herald
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Anthony Chiang covers the Miami Heat for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and was born and raised in Miami.