Heat lose third straight and get blown out at home by Kings 127-111

Miami has hit their first real rough patch of the season after being blown out by the 14th seed Kings at home. (Photo via Miami Heat/X)

The fun and exciting start to the Miami Heat’s season has come to a crashing halt, as they lose their season-worst third consecutive game to the Sacramento Kings, 127-111.

It’s also the Heat’s fourth loss out of the last five games. They drop to a 14-10 record overall, 10-3 at home and back into the East’s play-in picture as the current seventh seed.

Miami is starting to lose games that they should have won. The offense and defense doesn’t feel the same, and the results are trending in the wrong direction with no answers on the horizon. The Kings entered tonight’s matchup with a 5-17 record as one of the most underwhelming teams in the league as the 14th seed in the Western Conference. Yet, they stormed into Kaseya Center and made it look easy from start to finish.

Zach LaVine’s game-high 42-point explosion led the way for Sacramento, as the veteran guard completely torched the Heat defense.

The Kings shot an efficient 53% overall as a team and 42% from 3-point range on the night. Miami’s biggest concern, which has been an issue over these last few games, was their inability to shoot from beyond the arc— going an abysmal 29%. They simply couldn’t keep up with LaVine and the Kings’ shooting efficiency all night long.

Some of the rare bright sides to the Heat’s loss was the play of Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Simone Fontecchio off the bench. Jaquez posted an all-around 27/6/6 statline on 9 of 15 from the field. After his 3-point shot had gone cold recently, Fontecchio finally got some to fall again. The Italian sharpshooter finished with 20 points and 7 rebounds on 8 of 14 shooting.

However, it was a quiet night for the Bam Adebayo-Norman Powell duo. The double bigs starting lineup with Kel’el Ware also didn’t work once again. In Tyler Herro, Davion Mitchell and Pelle Larsson’s absences due to injury, coach Erik Spoelstra went with a first unit of Dru Smith, Powell, Andrew Wiggins, Adebayo and Ware. It was Miami’s 10th different starting group in 24 games, and that lineup was outscored by 86 points combined.

Spoelstra has attempted to run both big and small rotations, and it doesn’t matter if Herro or Powell have been available or not— the Heat look like a different team for all of the wrong reasons lately. Their pace and space offense has been a shell of itself from the start of the year. And the defense has looked even worse. There are deeper rooted issues in these recent losses, but in a nutshell, it has appeared that Miami’s chemistry has unfortunately looked off ever since Herro’s return.

Hopefully the Heat can get back on track sooner rather than later, before the rest of the East continues to pass them by in the standings.

Heat lose third straight and get blown out at home by Kings 127-111

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