Mateo’s Hoop Diary: Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo took over in the Heat’s win versus the Raptors

The Heat overcame a 16-point-first-half deficit to defeat the Raptors, winning four in a row for the first time this season. The defense cranked up in the second half, plus Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo took over. 

To start, the hungry Raptors scored 20 points in the lane in the first quarter on fastbreak strikes and screen roll attacks in the half-court. Jakob Poeltl and Gradey Dick caused most of the destruction inside. 

Yet, the Heat countered with seven straight points from Herro at long and close range. Jimmy Butler also made two trips to the line, and Duncan Robinson scored six points on layups.

But the defense in the second frame was still chewed up, even when deploying the zone. A 14-2 Toronto run forced coach Erik Spoelstra to call a stoppage as his team was down 16 points. At that moment, the Heat had menmotum, as Pat Riley calls the opposite of momentum. 

Then the Heatles had a 14-2 run, supplied by Herro, Adebayo, Nikola Jović and Terry Rozier to force a Toronto timeout. After that stoppage, Dru Smith connected with Butler for soft alley-oop through contact, and Jović sprinkled in a trey and made a layup. 

At halftime, the Heat was up 58-51. The team had 28 paint points, three on the break, three via second chances, eight off turnovers and 23 from the bench.

The Raptors had 36 paint points, 14 on the break, three on extra tries, 13 off turnovers and 29 from the bench. 

Out of intermission, the defense shut down RJ Barrett by promptly bothering his close-range shots. On the other side, Herro crossed up Kelly Olynyk from at the top, dribbling down for a layup and drained two deep shots (one was a four-point play). On top of that, Kevin Love put up six points and Butler tallied two shots.  At the end of the period, the Heat led 89-76.

Subsequently, Adebayo cracked open the fourth quarter making two floaters, a wing triple and a layup for nine straight points. He added four more before the period ended, and Jaime Jaquez scored multiple field goals, too. 

On defense, the Heat prevented a comeback effort by intercepting the ball twice, poking it free once and holding Dick plus Barrett to two of 11 treys. 

The Heat won 114-104. Additionally, the team had 52 paint points, five on the break, 15 via second chances, 14 off turnovers and 42 from the bench.

Herro had 23 points on nine of 13 shots, with four rebounds, four assists and two turnovers. 

Adebayo had 21 points on 47.1% shooting, with 16 rebounds, five assists, one block and one turnover. 

The Raptors had 56 paint points, 19 on the break, 10 on extra tries, 23 off turnovers and 50 from the bench. 

Observations:

1. Dru Smith played 34 minutes, making it his third straight game with at least 25. He was a pest, bothering the ball on the dribble and after the catch. He is emerging into one of the Heat’s top perimeter disruptors.

At the postgame presser, Spoelstra said about Smith, “When you can find guys who do winning things over and over and over, that’s kind of a superpower in this league.”

2. The Heat held the Raptors to 18 of 33 shots at the rim, which is 11.1 percentage points below the league average (65.6).

3. Jović got his first minutes since the Heat’s win versus the Dallas Mavericks on Nov. 24. He was perfect on three shots in the first half, hitting two 3-pointers and dribbling on the baseline for a layup.  In the second half, he made an alley-oop layup through contact. 

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