Heat escapes dizzying, back-and-forth game with win over Blazers to reach 10-game mark at 6-4

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 136-131 win over the Portland Trail Blazers (5-4) on Saturday night at Kaseya Center to close a back-to-back set and improve to 2-0 on its four-game homestand. The Heat reaches the 10-game mark at 6-4 and continues the homestand on Monday against the Cleveland Cavaliers:

With the Heat playing at the fastest pace and the Trail Blazers playing at the second-fastest pace in the NBA this season, Saturday’s game was as dizzying and entertaining as expected. But in the end, the Heat survived to move to 4-0 at home this season.

The Heat started slow, missing 14 of its first 15 shots to find itself in an early 12-point hole.

“It’s a back-to-back,” Heat guard Norman Powell said, referring to Saturday’s game coming 24 hours after Miami defeated the Charlotte Hornets on Friday night. “[The Trail Blazers] had the night off. No excuses. But just to start, I thought we were, all of us, kind of sluggish, running in mud a little bit. We got good looks, but they just weren’t dropping.”

But the Heat found its rhythm as the game went on, shooting a scorching 26 of 34 for the rest of the first half to flip the script and enter halftime with a 72-65 lead. Miami did most of its damage from inside the paint, totaling 40 paint points in the first two quarters.

The back-and-forth pace continued in the second half, as the Trail Blazers opened the third quarter on a 15-7 run to pull ahead by one point just five minutes into the period. That’s when the Heat went on a 15-2 run of its own to build a 12-point advantage just a few minutes later before closing the third quarter with a three-point lead.

Then a wild fourth quarter that included 10 lead changes and seven ties ensued. For perspective, there were nine lead changes and four ties through the first three quarters.

But with the game tied at 127 and 2:16 to play, the Heat went on a 9-4 game-winning run to finally put the Trail Blazers away.

Powell started the game-deciding spurt by making two free throws to give the Heat a two-point lead with 2:05 remaining.

After Heat forward Nikola Jovic blocked a shot on the defensive end, Heat forward Andrew Wiggins came down and hit a clutch three-pointer to put Miami ahead by five with 1:32 to play.

Considering the Trail Blazers scored just four points over the final 2:16, that was enough for the Heat to come away with the victory.

Jovic led the Heat with a career-high 29 points on 10-of-16 shooting from the field, 3-of-7 shooting on threes and 6-of-8 shooting from the foul line, nine rebounds, seven assists, two steals and one block in 31 minutes.

Powell added 22 points, two rebounds, three assists and two steals for the Heat.

The Trail Blazers were led by Deni Avdija’s game-high 33 points. Avdija nearly finished with a triple-double, recording 11 rebounds and eight assists.

As one would expect from a game between the NBA’s two fastest teams, there were a total of 50 transition points (26 from the Trail Blazers and 24 from the Heat). The contest was played at a pace of 113 possessions per 48 minutes, which is a single-game place the Heat had not played at before this season since October 2019.

“Obviously, our guys are getting pretty comfortable with it,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the fast-pace style. “Embracing the unknown, that was the first thing from media day. And both teams were attacking. This was a heck of a basketball game.”

The Heat had a few of its best players out because of injuries on Saturday, but a few others played through their ailments.

Among those unavailable for the Heat was the leading duo of Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro. Adebayo missed his second straight game with a sprained big toe and Herro has yet to play this season after undergoing ankle surgery in September.

The Heat was also without Myron Gardner (G League), Terry Rozier (not with team) and Jahmir Young (G League) against the Trail Blazers.

But Jaime Jaquez Jr. played on Saturday despite spraining his left ankle late in Friday’s win over the Hornets. Jaquez, who was listed as questionable for the contest before being deemed available to play, closed Saturday’s victory with 14 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in 29 minutes.

“Jaime at 3 o’clock was not cleared to play,” Spoelstra said. “I mentioned that to the team, and he put himself out there. He spent three hours just trying to get his ankle ready. He even skipped the walk through just to continue to get treatment. And then he got cleared after that, gave us everything he had.”

Powell also played on Saturday after spraining his right ankle during Friday’s victory over the Hornets. Along with totaling 22 points, Powell logged 30 minutes and posted a plus/minus of plus 11.

In addition, Heat guard Pelle Larsson played through a lingering head cold. He contributed 16 points and five assists in 27 minutes.

The Trail Blazers didn’t have Javonte Cooke (G League), Scoot Henderson (left hamstring tear), Damian Lillard (left Achilles tendon injury management), Matisse Thybulle (left thumb ligament tear) and Blake Wesley (right foot fracture) against the Heat.

The bench continues to be a bright spot for the Heat early this season.

The Heat’s four-man bench rotation of Jaquez, Jovic, Simone Fontecchio and Dru Smith changed Saturday’s game with their energy.

After the Heat’s sluggish start on the second night of a back-to-back, the bench entered and immediately produced positive minutes..

With the Heat finding itself in a 12-point hole just four minutes into Saturday’s game, the bench helped bring Miami back to take its first lead since the opening seconds with 9:05 left in the second quarter.

The Heat’s bench combined to outscore the Trail Blazers’ reserves 33-20 in the first half. That edge grew to 63-33 by the end of the night.

“It’s just kind of our thing,” Jaquez said of the Heat’s bench providing a spark. “We want to really take pride in being that energy booster for our team. And so when we see the first unit, whether they’re going good or things are going slow, regardless, we want to just take that energy up to that next level.”

Along with standout performances from Jaquez and Jovic, Smith was also important with 13 points, five rebounds, six assists and four steals in 22 minutes off the Heat’s bench.

Fonteccho added seven points with the help of two made threes in 18 minutes.

This is just the continuation of an early-season theme for the Heat, which entered Saturday averaging the second-most bench points in the league this season at 48.2 per game.

Jaquez has been a big part of that success, establishing himself as one of the (very early) favorites for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award. He entered Saturday averaging the third-most points in the NBA among bench players this season at 17.4 per game behind only Portland’s Jerami Grant and Philadelphia Quentin Grimes.

“We got a deep team where we can put five guys out there and produce off that bench,” Powell said. “And they’ve done a great job all year long steadying the ship and pushing the leads and bringing that energy.”

Speaking of the Heat’s bench, Jovic turned in the best performance of his young season and maybe his entire NBA career.

It has been an uneven start to the season for Jovic, who entered Saturday averaging 8.4 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game while shooting just 40.7 percent from the field and 33.3 percent on threes through the Heat’s first nine games this season. He also has been moved to a reserve role after playing as a starter in the season opener.

But Jovic raised those averages on Saturday with a breakout night, finishing with a career-high 29 points on 10-of-16 shooting from the field and 3-of-7 shooting on threes to go with nine rebounds, seven assists and two steals. He also posted a team-best plus/minus of plus 20 in the win.

“My teammates got me going. It’s as simple as that,” Jovic said, crediting his teammates for his standout night.

The only blemish on Jovic’s stat line were his team-high six turnovers.

Jovic, 22, is an important part of the Heat’s young core. He was drafted by the Heat with the 27th overall pick in 2022 and signed a four-year, $62.4 million contract with Miami last month. So getting him back on track after a slow start to this season is important to the Heat.

“I liked his energy, I liked his intent,” Spoelstra said of Jovic’s performance on Saturday. “He was assertive, aggressive on both sides of the court.”

The Heat’s brutal early-season schedule isn’t over yet.

Not only did the Heat play six of its first eight games on the road to start the season, but Saturday marked the end of a grueling five-game stretch in seven days that took the Heat from Los Angeles to Denver and back to Miami.

The Heat gets a day off Sunday, but then begins a stretch of five straight games against teams that made it past the first round of the playoffs last season (vs. Cavaliers on Monday, vs. Cavaliers on Wednesday, at New York Knicks on Friday, vs. New York Knicks on Nov. 17 and vs. Golden State Warriors on Nov. 19).

The Heat’s next two games come against a Cavaliers team that humiliated Miami out of the first round of the playoffs last season. The Cavaliers outscored the Heat by 122 points in the four-game sweep for the most lopsided playoff series in NBA history.

Heat escapes dizzying, back-and-forth game with win over Blazers to reach 10-game mark at 6-4

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