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With Adebayo, Herro out, Heat get relief from swoon with 126-111 win in Atlanta

Ira Winderman, South Florida Sun Sentinel on

Published in Basketball

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.

Overcoming 30 points from Hawks guard Trae Young and 24 from 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.

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 fast-break 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.

— 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.

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 he kept going from there.

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.

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

— 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.


©2025 South Florida Sun Sentinel. Visit at sun-sentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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