Kyle Lowry and the Miami Heat race out ahead of the Raptors before keeping their rally at bay to avoid an 0-3 start.
MIAMI – The ticket sellers for the Miami Heat faced a particular 1-2 challenge this weekend:
First, they had to deal with back-to-back home games – Boston on Friday, Toronto on Saturday – while hoping Heat fans would commit to spending both weekend nights at FTX Arena.
Then there was the schedule quirk of the Raptors setting up shop in south Florida for a two-game-in-three-day-set. Same opponent two home games in a row? If that wasn’t tricky enough, there was the way Saturday’s meeting played out early, a snoozer on the competition scale with Miami in front at halftime, 71-50.
Things changed dramatically after that, though. A baseline jostle spilled over into the VIP seats, raising the temperature in the building considerably. By the end, the Heat hung on to win, 112-109. What might have been a same-old, same-old game Monday now has the sizzle of a cranky rematch.
Here are five takeaways:
1. No 0-3 for these guys
Game Recap: Heat 112, Raptors 109
It was bad enough that Miami’s 0-2 start was their worst in coach Erik Spoelstra’s 15 seasons. No way were the Heat going to completely screw up the four-game homestand with which the league schedule makers gifted them to open 2022-23.
They were livelier, more aggressive offensively and seemingly eager to put away the Raptors as quickly as they could. Thirty-eight points in the first quarter. Seventy-one halfway through. And a lead that ballooned to 24 with eight minutes left in the third quarter.
Jimmy Butler wasn’t waiting for the fourth quarter this time. Kyle Lowry denied again any pointedness in facing his former team, though he played like it. Meanwhile Miami had Toronto bottled up inside, holding the Raptors’ 2-point accuracy below their 3-point rate. Through the game’s first 28 minutes, that is.
2. Toronto played with one half tied behind its back
Scottie Barnes exits Saturday’s game with an ankle injury.
The Raptors had lost in Brooklyn on Friday, then traveled to Miami for an extended visit. Didn’t seem to be approaching it as a business trip early, the way star forward Pascal Siakam got into foul trouble and point guard Fred VanVleet did the same, while going scoreless through two quarters.
Then Scottie Barnes, the 2022 Kia Rookie of the Year, drove for a second-quarter dunk and fell underneath the basket. He grabbed at his right foot and, after sticking around for a free throw, hobbled off for the night.
And yet, that’s when things started to get interesting …
3. A melee wrapped in a skirmish inside a kerfuffle
A minor flare-up preceded the major one: Lowry got called for Miami’s first “transition take foul” of the season and disagreed, for a bit. VanVleet finally got on the board with the free throw and, before his team also got the ball as part of the new rule’s penalty, Lowry gave the Raptors another point by earning a technical.
On that next possession, Heat forward Caleb Martin and Raptors rookie Christian Koloko got tangled down low to the left of the basket. A careful review of the play seemed to show this sequence:
Koloko pushes Martin’s head down in their tangle. Martin arm-bars Koloko across the baseline. As Koloko goes, he flails and appears to inadvertently strike Martin in the back of the head. Martin steps with purpose to stand over Koloko. The Toronto rookie pops up with almost no space between them. At which point, Martin tackles him and they tumble past the photographers on the floor into the first row.
Players, coaches and referees rushed over and it looked serious, until the dance partners separated with no blows thrown. Both were ejected.
“I’m as confused as you,” Koloko said later.
Said Martin: “I just think there were a lot of plays leading up to it. Overall I’ve got to be more professional.”
Toronto coach Nick Nurse has been urging his guys to show “physicality,” and he didn’t sound disappointed. Certainly the result rewarded them.
4. The Raptors’ resilient response
Pascal Siakam drops 23 points vs. Heat.
When Lowry got whistled for the take foul, Miami led 81-57. Less than six minutes later, it was 83-76, a 19-2 Toronto run that seemed fueled by the emotions. Siakam, Gary Trent Jr. and backup guard Malachi Flynn got the attack in gear. Miami missed six shots and had three turnovers during the run.
“We didn’t want to go out there and get punked,” big man Precious Achiuwa said. “When that happened we understood what type of game it was.”
The Heat manage to tourniquet the bleeding and keep their lead to two or three possessions. Three times Toronto got within six, only to fall back. And then, with 13.7 seconds left, O.G. Anunoby’s three made it 111-108. But his team ran out of chances, Butler sinking one of two free throws to essentially seal it.
5. Let’s call it Raptors-Heat II
Never would have imagined this would rate a Roman numeral the way it started. But now there’s some anticipation, based on the second half and the extracurriculars.
Both teams took some good news out of this one. Miami played its best game yet, flexed a balanced offense and got much improved bench play (Max Strus with 20 points, notably). Toronto might not have Barnes available — he had an X-ray, with an MRI likely for Sunday — but he was walking pretty normally in the postgame locker room.
And we got an answer to a question hanging over the early days of this 2022-23 NBA season. Now we know what Udonis Haslem does. Stationed where he was at the end of Miami’s bench, he appeared to be determined peace keeper when the tussle happened.
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
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