ATLANTA – What do you get when a pair of teams enter at 2-8 in their previous 10? The desperation of Friday night at State Farm Arena.

Miami Heat vs. Atlanta Hawks wasn’t about making a statement.

It was about coming up for air.

To that end, the Heat can breathe a bit easier, after stealing into the Georgia night with a 126-111 victory.

With his team playing in the ailment absences of Bam Adebayo (back) and Tyler Herro (toe), Heat coach Erik Spoelstra reshuffled his rotation and found enough to stop the bleeding.

“It’s tough in NBA seasons. You’re always going to go through something. And we’ve been through a rough patch together, but I really commend the group for just coming in on Christmas Eve just to try to work to get things better,” said Spoelstra, who felt the need for that Dec. 24 practice, when most other teams are idle.

“There was a collective spirit. You could feel it from tip-off, and then you could feel it in those swing moments when inevitably a team will come back and make a run, and they’re on their home court. But we had responses pretty consistently throughout the course of the game.”

Overcoming 30 points from Hawks guard Trae Young and 24 from Hawks forward Jalen Johnson, the Heat got 25 points from Norman Powell, 21 from replacement starter Pelle Larsson, 18 from Andrew Wiggins, 16 from Jaime Jaquez Jr., as well as a 16-point, 13-rebound double-double from Kel’el Ware.

“Obviously we got two of our big guns out, and it’s a moment for everybody to step up,” Jaquez said. “We always talk about no one’s going to come save us, we got to do it ourselves. I think tonight that’s what we showed.”

The Heat are right back at it on Saturday night, against the Indiana Pacers at Kaseya Center.

Five Degrees of Heat from Friday night’s game:

1. Game flow: It was tied 32-32 after the opening period. Then, boosted by a 12-0 run late in the second period, the Heat moved to a 63-51 halftime lead, with 14 fastbreak points in that second period.

From there, the Heat took a 90-84 lead into the fourth, pushing their lead back to double digits early in the period, with Wiggins stepping up his scoring.

Eventually the lead got to 15, forcing Hawks coach Quin Snyder to call timeouts 49 seconds apart. But as has been the case all season amid the inability to build leads into bigger leads, it soon was an eight-point game.

A banked-in Larsson 3-pointer eventually provided needed relief, the Heat holding on from there.

“The guys really shared the game, moved the ball,” Spoelstra said. “There were some great possessions during the course of the game. The pace was pretty appropriate until those last six minutes when we had to execute down the stretch. But it was encouraging to see that.”

2. No Bam: Not only was Adebayo out Friday, but Spoelstra did not cast an optimistic tone about Saturday night against the Pacers.

“We’ll see,” Spoelstra said before Friday night’s game. “We’ll treat him day-to-day. I know him, I know his personality, I know how much he wants to be out there. But since it is back soreness and he wasn’t moving well two days ago, it didn’t really get better yesterday. Today was just full treatment and some light activities. So we’ll see where he is tomorrow.”

Spoelstra declined to address whether the back had impacted Adebayo’s recent uneven play.

“I’m not going to comment on that,” he said. “He wouldn’t want me to comment on that. But we’ll just do as much treatment as we possibly can. I do know that he needs this right now.”

3. The Larsson factor: With Adebayo out, Spoelstra immediately injected Larsson into the starting lineup in the first game back for the second-year swingman after missing the previous five with an ankle sprain.

It was Larsson’s 17th start of the season. The first five was rounded out by Powell, Ware, Wiggins and Davion Mitchell. The Heat entered 4-2 with that lineup.

“He just does so many of the intangibles on both sides of the court,” Spoelstra said. “He cuts, he moves for you offensively. It helps all your better players.”

Larsson was injured in the Dec. 9 NBA Cup road loss to the Orlando Magic.

Larsson was 3 for 3 for eight points in his initial six-minute stint, and kept going from there.

“When that first of three went down, I said that’s nice, a little bonus,” Larsson said. “I kind of prefer being thrown in right in the fire. See what you’re made of and how it goes.”

Larsson finished 9 of 13 from the field, with six rebounds and five assists.

4. Jovic, too: In addition to Larsson, also back was Nikola Jovic, who missed the previous four games with an elbow contusion.

Jovic was fourth off Spoelstra’s bench, behind Jaquez, Kasparas Jakucionis and Dru Smith.

That had Simone Fontecchio out of the rotation for just the second time this season.

After an 0-for-4 start, Jovic completed a four-point play early in the second period, before then falling to 1 of 8, as his season-long struggles continued, later falling to 1 of 11.

“I’ll say this about Niko,” Spoelstra said, “I think this was a good step for him to be able to contribute and impact the game without making shots. And you didn’t see some of the body language that sometimes has happened if he misses layups or misses open threes or has a turnover. He just got on to the next play.”

Jovic closed 3 of 14 for 10 points, although he did add seven rebounds and four assists.

“Maybe my shot didn’t feel good today, but it felt good to be out there,” he said. “Just competing, that’s what I’m here to do. That’s what I like to do.”

5. Powell play: The uneven recent run for Powell continued early, at just six points midway through the first quarter.

Previously on pace for his first All-Star berth, Powell in the three previous games had shot 7 of 21, 7 of 17 and 6 of 17.

This time it was a 2-of-6 start. With Herro and Adebayo out, more was needed. So Powell immediately responded with back-to-back 3-pointers.

Powell came around to close 9 of 16 from the field, with seven rebounds and five assists.

Through it all, Powell extended his streak of games scoring in double figures to 29, six off the longest such run of his career.

“We had everybody on the same page doing things with intention and purpose and holding each other accountable throughout the course of the game,” Powell said.

“Just working the game tonight, playing off my teammates and making it easy.”