There is home Heat and then there is this. And that has what looked so simple after Charlotte Hornets forward Nic Batum went down with a foot injury now looking like something far different.
After blowing past the Hornets at AmericanAirlines Arena in the first two games of this best-of-seven first-round NBA playoff series, the Miami Heat turned into something closer to the team that struggled on the road over the second half of the regular season, falling, 96-80, Saturday night at Time Warner Cable Arena.
The victory moved the Hornets within 2-1 in the series, with Game 4 at 7 p.m. Monday back on the Hornets’ court and now a Game 5 assured Wednesday at 8 p.m. at AmericanAirlines Arena.
“Our intensity, our defense, our communication, our organization was so much better,” Hornets coach Steve Clifford said. “It’s a good win and it gives us a chance.”
An 18-0 third-quarter Hornets surge paced by first-round pick Frank Kaminsky settled any notion of a Heat sweep, with Clifford moving to a big lineup in Batum’s absence that put Heat centre Hassan Whiteside into foul trouble and the Heat on their heels for the first time in the series.
“We were due for a run and it finally happened,” Kaminsky said.
As a matter of perspective, after scoring 67 and 72 points in the first half of the first two games of the series, the Heat this time had only 58 going into Saturday’s fourth quarter.
“We played a lot harder. We played a lot smarter,” Clifford said. “But this isn’t about winning one game. This is about winning a series.”
Both teams featured balanced scoring, but guard Jeremy Lin helped shift the balance in Charlotte’s favor with 18 points off the bench.
For the Heat, there were 19 points from Luol Deng, 17 from Dwyane Wade and 13 points and 18 rebounds from Whiteside, but no game-changing performances.
With Batum out after straining his left foot in the fourth quarter of Charlotte’s Game 2 loss, the Hornets went big, moving Al Jefferson into the starting lineup at center and Kaminsky into the lineup at power forward, with Marvin Williams shifted to small forward and Cody Zeller removed from the first five.
“Playing bigger, watching it, I think size has been a difference for us,” Clifford said. “But the big thing tonight, we were more intense.”
The Heat stayed with their regular lineup and rotations, including Amar’e Stoudemire as their first big man off the bench.
But this time the Heat’s reserves missed the shots the Hornets had ceded the first two games, the percentages clearly catching up to Erik Spoelstra’s team.
The Hornets’ 18-0 run pushed them to a 71-53 lead late in the third period, with Whiteside called for his fourth foul along the way, with 2:01 left in the third period.
Charlotte then went into the fourth up, 75-58.
Kaminsky began to find his scoring range after Spoelstra shifted Wade onto Kaminsky in order to allow Deng to defend Hornets point guard Kemba Walker. As part of that process, Heat point guard Goran Dragic was shifted defensively onto Courtney Lee.
The Heat went into halftime down 49-44, with Charlotte with a 17-5 bench scoring advantage over the first two periods.
The Heat had scored 67 and 72 points in the first half of the first two games of the series.
Lin had 13 points and Jefferson 10 after the break for Charlotte, with Deng’s 12 leading the Heat.
The Heat committed eight turnovers in the first half that led to nine Charlotte points, while the Hornets committed only two first-half turnovers, with the Heat failing to score off either.
The Heat’s first true adversity of the series arrived with 7:39 to play in the second period, when Dragic, struggling at 2-of-7 from the field to that stage, was forced to the bench with his third foul.