Heat’s bad, terrible, no good fourth quarter

Knock out blow — Bulls +3

Bam Adebayo kept answering the Bulls push with scoring. He cut the lead from five points to three. Tyler Herro only took three shots in the fourth and missed all of them. The Bulls shot 57% in the fourth quarter and went 8/11 in the paint. Josh Giddey, Ayo Dosunmu, Mata Buzelis and Coby White all scored over 20 points in the game. The game was decided at 125-122 as the Heat started to foul the Bulls and they made all their shots.

Heat players worried more about scoring than defending.

The bad breakup between the Heat and Jimmy Butler is affecting the team’s psyche. As per Heat culture, that is not supposed to affect the players on the court. Coach Spoelstra even was saying that “basketball still needs to be played.” Jimmy Butler gave a maxim in the 2021 playoffs, “As long as we worry about defending instead of making shots, we’ll win.”

In the current “chicks dig the three pointer” of the NBA, the Heat’s defensive game plan of protecting the paint may also need to be re-examined. The Bulls outscored the Heat by 12 in the paint. They shot 59% in the first half from the paint and 56% in the second from the paint. The overriding stat was the 55% from three point range in the second half.