The Miami Heat are off to a 10-6 start, but their record might be better if not for a few blown leads of late.
Coming off a second 21-point collapse in less than a week, the Heat will conclude a five-game trip Saturday evening with a visit to the Brooklyn Nets.
Miami will play in its league-leading 12th road game and is 6-5 so far. Two of the five losses were meltdowns of varying degrees on its current trip, which continued Friday night with a 100-98 loss to the New York Knicks.
The Heat trailed by one at halftime, scored the first 19 points of the second half and led 83-62 with 3:40 to go in the third quarter. From that point, the Heat were outscored 38-15 and were particularly ineffective in the fourth quarter by getting outscored 29-11 and shooting 3-of-21 from the field, including 1 of 8 from 3-point range.
Miami’s collapse started late in the third by allowing the lead to slip to 16 going into the fourth quarter. The Heat also held an 11-point lead but wound up getting outscored 18-5 over the final 6:05.
“That’s disappointing,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We had opportunities, and we didn’t take advantage of it when we needed to. There’s a karma to it, and we ended up paying the price for that.”
Miami’s Jimmy Butler scored 23 points but was 0-for-5 in the fourth quarter and missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer just before the buzzer.
The collapse was similar to what unfolded in last Saturday’s 102-97 loss to the Chicago Bulls. The Heat raced to a 22-1 lead in the first 6 1/2 minutes and held a 14-point advantage with 2:13 left in the third quarter before Butler missed a potential tying 3 with 6.6 seconds left.
“I hope this is our last one, but for some odd reason, I got a feeling we’re going to have a lead and give it up at some other time, but I hope that we win whenever we do that,” Butler said.
Butler and the Heat also hope a collapse does not occur for a second time against the Nets. On Nov. 1, the Heat took a 109-105 home loss to the Nets after leading by 16 points in the first half and 15 in the third quarter, when they were outscored 34-22.
Miami avoided a collapse against Brooklyn on Nov. 16 when it held a 17-point lead with 9:44 to go and notched a 122-115 victory.
The loss in Miami started a three-game losing streak for the Nets, who absorbed a wild 147-145 overtime defeat in Atlanta on Wednesday night. The loss to the Hawks occurred three days after a 121-99 rout at home by Philadelphia.
Mikal Bridges scored 45 Wednesday, equaling a career high he set Feb. 15 against Miami in Brooklyn. He scored 11 points in overtime but missed a potential game-winning fallaway jumper at the end of regulation.
Aside from hoping to see another big game from Bridges, the Nets are trying to improve their 3-point defense of late. Brooklyn allowed 18 triples Wednesday and has allowed 65 in its past four contests.
“We know we need to get better defensively,” Brooklyn center Nic Claxton told reporters at practice Friday. “That’s definitely a big, big, big topic of discussion just for everybody — coaches and players.”
–Field Level Media