Coup’s Takeaways: HEAT, Herro Stay Hot With Professional Win Over 76ers

We have reached the point of the season where a good chunk of the teams left on the schedule are just playing out the string, having either been eliminated or sitting on the verge of elimination from the playoffs.

That’s not to say that the players on the floor aren’t going to compete, however. You still have to do your job and earn the win, because if you begin to think anything is going to be handed to you in this league that’s the moment where you can end up harming your own chances.

Philadelphia jumped out to a quick lead, playing fast and free as many teams do when their best players are out and the deeper roster guys are getting an opportunity to prove themselves. A series of threes had the Sixers up 8-2, but Miami continued their scorching shooting of the previous two games to take back the lead as fast as you can snap your fingers. Quentin Grimes, leading the way offensively for the 76ers during this late-season stretch after coming over from Dallas in a trade for Caleb Martin, did everything he could to keep up, including a four-point play, but Miami’s shooting was too much while Tyler Herro and Kel’el Ware cleaned up everything in between.

A double digit lead in the second quarter started to look comfortable, but the Sixers twice cut in to try and catch up, first with a 5-0 burst and soon after a 6-0 run. Every time the Sixers threatened, including a brief moment when they closed within two, Miami immediately and swiftly answered back, closing the half on an 8-1 run to take a 62-53 lead into the break. Not the most impressive half of the HEAT’s season, to be sure, but enough to earn a little comfort.

Same story in the third, Philadelphia coming from all angles to keep it close, Miami hitting one three after another – Herro and Alec Burks had six threes between them early in the third – to pull away.

And then it was a three-point game again, right before Haywood Highsmith answered with a corner three and an oop in transition. Within literal minutes of the Sixers crawling back within one possession, the lead was back to 12.

By the end of the third Burks had capped off a 24-8 run with his sixth three, Miami sitting 16-of-32 from the arc, as Miami led by 21.

No drama in the fourth as Miami takes it, 118-95, with a job well done and a win well earned.

There’s no other way to say it. The HEAT just put up what is probably the single best week of three-point shooting in franchise history.

And that might be underselling it.

Put it this way. The NBA three point line has been around since the 1979-1980 season. And in nearly half a century, only two teams have shot 51.5 percent from three on at least 130 attempts across four games. The first of those teams was the 73-win Golden State Warriors back in 2015-16. The second, you guessed it, is this HEAT team. And that’s not even including their 41.7 percent shooting against the Houston Rockets in the final game of their losing streak last week.

Is this a sign of an offensive breakthrough? Not in the way most would want it to be. You always have to be wary of any numbers that come in the final weeks of the season, given the wide variety of lineups teams are playing, but as we noted last game the offensive process has been pretty solid over the past month, fourth quarters aside. And fourth quarters haven’t been much of a factor with the team shooting like this. When you’re hot, you’re hot. You enjoy the historic results while they’re there without losing sight of the process, the ball and body movement, that got you there in the first place.

Another extremely efficient evening for Herro (30 points on 17 shots), himself in the middle of maybe the most efficient week of his career.

At one point in the fourth quarter Herro had the three that gave him 30 at the shot clock buzzer wiped off the board after the fact, only for Herro to immediately drop in a deep, deep three to get himself back to 30. That just about sums up how his last week has gone.

Herro scored only eight points in that loss to Houston last week, but since then he’s averaged 28 points on 15-of-34 three point shooting, taking just 63 shots in all. He’s never hit those numbers across such a short period of time before. Heck, most players have never hit those numbers across such a short period of time. The three ball is a great equalizer, but all the same Dwyane Wade only matched those efficiency numbers across four games once in his career.

A nice return to the rotation from Pelle Larsson as well, 14 points to go with six rebounds, four assists, four steals and two blocks. And then there’s Larsson’s for-the-moment partner in the starting lineup, Burks, who added 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting. Larsson is a rookie and Burks is a longtime veteran, but both have been in and out of the rotation all season while producing every time they play. A steady 13 points and 14 rebounds came from Kel’el Ware, too, taking advantage of every inch of advantage he had over Philadelphia’s lineup.

While Orlando won their game, Miami got a little help in the standings as Chicago lost to the Dallas Mavericks, which moves Miami and Chicago into a tie in the loss column for the No. 9 seed. Chicago still owns the head-to-head tiebreaker, but both teams will get a chance to meet up in the final days of the season.

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By ML Staff. Courtesy of NBA.